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^Clarence 

L/irroWt  m 

his  own  Defense  to 
tfie  Jury  that  exon¬ 
erated  him  of  ffie 
charge  of  bribery 
at  Lox  Angelex 

August  -  ijiz 

nuiuiiiiiuiiifmiiniiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiniiiinufifiiiiiiuiniiaiiiiiiietiifi 

With  Portrait  2$ Cents* 

Golden.  Prej-J 
Loi*  Angeles  -  5an  Francisco 
Rockford,  Ill. 


PLEA  OF  CLARENCE  DARROW 
IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE  to  the 
JURY  AT  LOS  ANGELES 
AUGUST,  1912 


Copyright  by 
GOLDEN  PRESS 
Los  Angeles  ::  San  Francisco 
19  12 


FOREWORD 


THERE  was  no  dry  eye  or  unmoved  heart  in  the  crowded 
courtroom  when,  at  noon  on  the  15th  of  August,  1912, 
Clarence  Darrow  gravely  turned  from  his  long  address 
to  the  “jury  of  his  peers”  and  quietly  resumed  his  seat  at  the 
“bar  of  justice,”  where  for  three  weary  months  the  District 
Attorney  of  Los  Angeles  County,  the  National  Erectors’  As¬ 
sociation  and  the  Burns  Agency,  had  exhausted  every  means 
to  convict  him  of  bribery. 

On  the  morning  of  the  17th,  as  soon  as  the  instructions 
of  Judge  Hutton  had  been  delivered,  the  jury  quickly,  de¬ 
cisively  voted  “Not  Guilty.”  The  trial  was  based  on  the 
charge  that  on  the  28th  of  November,  1911,  the  defendant 
had  given  Bert  Franklin  $4,000  with  which  to  go  down  on  Main 
street  and  bribe  a  prospective  juror  (Lockwood)  in  the  case 
of  J.  B.  McNamara  then  on  trial.  Briefly,  the  state’s  evi¬ 
dence  was  that  Lockwood  and  the  District  Attorney  arranged 
to  have  the  money  passed  while  a  number  of  detectives  were 
watching.  Also,  that  in  January  a  representative  of  the 
National  Erectors’  Association,  Special  Federal  Prosecutor 
Oscar  Lawlor,  and  Mr.  Darrow’s  former  employe  John 
R.  Harrington,  met  at  the  Sherman  House  in  Chicago 
and  planned  a  dictagraph  ambuscade  which  was  later 
operated  at  Harrington’s  room  in  the  Hayward  Hotel  at 
Los  Angeles  to  which  Mr.  Darrow  was  unsuspectingly 
lured  by  Harrington  on  a  pretext  of  friendly  and  confidential 
conversation.  A  great  many  collateral  issues  were  introduced, 
the  Court  permitting  the  state  the  widest  latitude,  so  that 
during  the  long  trial,  which  began  on  May  15th  and 
lasted  till  August  17th,  the  entire  McNamara  defense,  its 
settlement,  and  the  pleas  of  guilty  were  exhaustively  re¬ 
hearsed. 

Clarence  Darrow  is  like  no  other  man.  His  position  in 


the  nation  and  at  the  bar  is  unique — his  life,  his  ideals,  his 
“view  of  things”  are  his  own.  He  is  often  silent;  but  when 
he  speaks  men  listen.  What  he  writes  or  says  has  a  strength 
and  character  individual,  distinctive,  profound,  and  humane. 
In  no  wise  is  he  an  entertainer,  but  a  man  of  thought  and 
purpose.  Those  who  seek  rhetorical  flourishes  and  flights 
of  mere  oratory  need  not  search  the  following,  or  any  pages, 
of  the  man  Darrow.  The  former  do,  however,  reveal  to  a 
considerable  extent  the  method — and  the  “madness,”  if  you 
will — of  one  of  the  greatest  publicists  in  America  in  the  most 
critical  hours  of  his  career — a  circumstance  which  gives 
these  pages  a  value  apart  and  an  importance  beyond 
the  province  of  contemporary  judgment.  This,  his  latest 
and  perhaps  his  greatest  jury  address  which,  by  the  direction 
and  with  the  valued  assistance  of  Mr.  Fay  Lewis,  his  life 
long  friend,  I  have  prepared  for  publication  as  carefully  as 
the  time  at  my  disposal  would  permit  and  with  regrettable 
but  unavoidable  scantiness  of  revision  on  the  author’s  part, 
was  delivered  entirely  impromptu  without  even  the  assist¬ 
ance  of  notes.  It  was  spoken  rapidly,  unhesitatingly,  with¬ 
out  a  single  pause,  and  its  official  transcription  by  the  court 
reporters  was  by  no  means  flawless.  In  a  few  instances,  the 
purely  technical  discussion  of  obscure  points  has  been  omitted, 
but  in  the  main,  and  practically,  the  plea  stands  as  it 
fell  from  the  lips  of  the  accused  man — fell  on  hearts  and 
ears  keen  to  lose  no  syllable  of  its  awe-ful  earnestness,  its 
quick  turns  of  humor,  its  wonderfully  pleasing  rhythm,  its 
quiet  boldness,  its  daring  dignity  and  its  subtle  symplicity. 
It  will  not  “read”  as  it  “listened,”  of  course,  for  the  person¬ 
ality  that  uttered  it  is  not  to  be  translated  by  type, 
but  the  cause  of  the  weak  which  it  voiced  is  not  lost  in  the 
printed  pages,  nor  is  the  warp  of  profound  philosophy  on  which 
it  is  woven  obscured. 


Los  Angeles,  August,  1912. 


Luke  North. 


“Every  step  in  civilization  means 

THE  ELEVATION  OF  THE  POOR,  MEANS 

HELPING  THE  WEAK  AND  THE  OPPRESSED" 


IL  A*  DONOHUE  ft  CO 


PRINTERS,  CHICAGO 


PLEA  OF 


CLARENCE  DARROW 

In  His  Own  Defense  to  the  Jury 
that  Exonerated  Him 


Mr.  Darrow  began  bis  address  to  the  jury  shortly  after  court  con¬ 
vened  on  the  afternoon  of  August  14th: 


GENTLEMEN  of  the  jury,  an  experience  like  this  never  came 
to  me  before,  and  of  course  I  cannot  say  how  I  will  get  along  with 
it.  I  am  quite  sure  there  are  very  few  men  who  are  called  upon  by  an 
experience  of  this  kind,  but  I  have  felt,  gentlemen,  after  the  patience 
you  have  given  this  case  for  all  these  weeks,  that  you  would  be  willing 
to  listen  to  me,  even  though  I  might  not  argue  it  as  well  as  I  would  some 
other  case.  I  felt  that  at  least  I  ought  to  say  something  to  you  twelve 
men  besides  what  I  have  already  said  upon  the  witness  stand. 

In  the  first  place  I  am  a  defendant  charged  with  a  serious  crime. 
I  have  been  looking  into  the  penitentiary  for  six  or  seven  months,  and 
now  I  am  waiting  for  you  twelve  men  to  say  whether  I  shall  go  there 
or  not.  In  the  next  place,  I  am  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  2,000  miles 
away  from  home  and  friends — although  I  am  proud  to  say  that  here, 
so  far  away,  there  have  gathered  around  me  as  good  and  loyal  and  faith¬ 
ful  friends  as  any  man  could  have  upon  the  earth.  Still  I  am  unknown 
to  you. 

I  think  I  can  say  that  no  one  in  my  native  town  would  have  made 
to  any  jury  any  such  statement  as  was  made  of  me  by  the  District  Attor¬ 
ney  in  opening  this  case.  I  will  venture  to  say  he  could  not  afterward 


4 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


have  found  a  companion  except  among  detectives  and  crooks  and  sneaks 
in  the  city  where  I  live  if  he  had  dared  to  open  his  mouth  in  the  infamous 
way  that  he  did  in  this  case. 

But  here  I  am  in  his  hands.  Think  of  it!  In  a  position  where  he 
can  call  me  a  coward — and  in  all  my  life  I  never  saw  or  heard  so  cow¬ 
ardly,  sneaky  and  brutal  an  act  as  Ford  committed  in  this  courtroom 
before  this  jury.  Was  any  courage  displayed  by  him?  It  was  only  brutal 
and  low,  and  every  man  knows  it. 

I  don’t  object  to  a  lawyer  arguing  the  facts  in  his  case  and  the  evi¬ 
dence  in  his  case,  and  drawing  such  conclusions  as  he  will,  but  every  man 
with  a  sense  of  justice  in  his  soul  knows  that  this  attack  of  Ford’s  was 
cowardly  and  malicious  in  the  extreme.  It  was  not  worthy  of  a  man  and 
did  not  come  from  a  man. 

I  am  entitled  to  some  rights  until  you,  gentlemen,  shall  say  differently  j 
and  I  would  be  entitled  to  some  even  then,  and  so  long  as  I  have  any,  I 
shall  assert  them  the  best  I  can  as  I  go  through  the  world  wherever  I  am. 

What  am  I  on  trial  for,  gentlemen  of  the  jury?  You  have  been 
listening  here  for  three  months.  What  is  it  all  about?  If  you  don’t  know 
then  you  are  not  as  intelligent  as  I  believe.  I  am  not  on  trial  for  having 
sought  to  bribe  a  man  named  Lockwood.  There  may  be  and  doubtless 
are  many  people  who  think  I  did  seek  to  bribe  him,  but  I  am  not  on  trial 
for  that,  and  I  will  prove  it  to  you.  No  man  is  being  tried  on  that  charge. 
I  am  on  trial  because  I  have  been  a  lover  of  the  poor,  a  friend  of  the  op¬ 
pressed,  because  I  have  stood  by  Labor  for  all  these  years,  and  have 
brought  down  upon  my  head  the  wrath  of  the  criminal  interests  in  this 
country.  Whether  guilty  or  innocent  of  the  crime  charged  in  the  indict, 
ment,  that  is  the  reason  I  am  here,  and  that  is  the  reason  that  I  have 
been  pursued  by  as  cruel  a  gang  as  ever  followed  a  man. 

Now,  let’s  see  if  I  can  prove  this.  If  the  District  Attorney  of  this 
county  thought  a  crime  had  been  committed,  well  and  good,  let  him  go 
ahead  and  prosecute,  but  has  he  done  this?  Has  he  prosecuted  any  of 
the  bribe  takers  and  givers? 

And  who  are  these  people  back  of  him  and  back  of  the  organization 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


5 


of  this  county  who  have  been  hot  on  my  trail  and  whose  bark  I  can 
remember  from  long  ago?  Will  you  tell  me,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  why 
the  Erectors’  Association  and  the  Steel  Trust  are  interested  in  this  case 
way  out  here  in  Los  Angeles?  Will  you  tell  me  why  the  Erectors’  Asso¬ 
ciation  of  Indianapolis  should  have  put  up  as  vicious  and  as  cruel  a  plot 
to  catch  me  as  was  ever  used  against  any  American  citizen?  Gentlemen, 
if  you  don’t  know  you  are  not  fit  to  be  jurors.  Are  these  people  interested 
in  bribery?  Why,  almost  every  dollar  of  their  ill-gotten  gains  has  come 
from  bribery.  When  did  the  Steel  Trust — the  Steal  Trust,  which  owns 
the  Erectors’  Association  and  is  the  Erectors’  Association — when  did  it 
become  interested  in  prosecuting  bribery?  Was  it  when  they  unloaded 
a  billion  of  dollars  of  watered  stock  upon  the  American  people — stock  that 
draws  its  life  and  interest  from  the  brawn,  the  brain  and  the  blood  of  the 
American  working  man?  Are  they  interested  in  coming  all  the  way  out 
to  this  State  and  to  Los  Angeles  to  prosecute  a  man  merely  for  bribery? 
There  are  a  good  many  states  between  this  city  and  New  York  City. 
There  are  a  good  many  State’s  Attorney’s  in  this  broad  land  of  ours.  They 
can  begin  at  home  if  they  would,  these  men  who  have  made  bribery  a 
profession  and  a  fine  art.  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  it  is  not  that  any  of 
these  men  care  about  bribery,  but  it  is  that  there  never  was  a  chance 
before  since  the  world  began  to  claim  that  bribery  had  been  committeed 
for  the  poor.  Heretofore,  bribery,  like  everything  else,  had  been  monop¬ 
olized  by  the  rich.  But  now  they  thought  there  was  a  chance  to  lay  this 
crime  to  the  poor  and  “to  get”  me.  Is  there  any  doubt  about  it?  Sup¬ 
pose  I  am  guilty  of  bribery,  is  that  why  I  am  prosecuted  in  this  Court? 
Is  that  why  by  the  most  infamous  methods  known  to  the  law  and  outside 
the  law,  these  men,  the  real  enemies  of  society,  are  trying  to  get  me  inside 
the  penitentiary? 

THE  UNFORGIVABLE  CRIME 
No,  that  isn’t  it,  and  you  twelve  men  know  it.  Your  faces  are  un¬ 
familiar  to  me.  There  may  not  be  a  man  on  this  jury  who  believes  as  I 
believe  upon  these  great  questions  between  capital  and  labor.  You  may 
all  be  on  the  other  side,  but  I  have  faced  the  other  side  over  and  over 


6 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 

again,  and  I  am  going  to  tell  you  the  truth  this  afternoon.  It  may  be  the 
last  chance  that  I  shall  ever  get  to  speak  to  a  jury. 

These  men  are  interested  in  getting  me.  The  have  concocted  all 
sorts  of  schemes  for  the  sake  of  getting  me  out  of  the  way.  Do  you  sup¬ 
pose  they  care  what  laws  I  might  have  broken?  I  have  committed  one 
crime,  one  crime  which  is  like  that  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  cannot 
be  forgiven.  I  have  stood  for  the  weak  and  the  poor.  I  have  stood  for 
the  men  who  toil.  And  therefore  I  have  stood  against  them,  and  now 
this  is  their  chance.  All  right,  gentlemen,  I  am  in  your  hands,  not  in 
theirs,  just  yet. 

In  examining  you  before  you  were  accepted  as  jurors,  Mr.  Fred¬ 
ericks  asked  you  whether,  if  I  should  address  you,  you  would  be  likely 
to  be  carried  away  by  sympathy?  You  won’t  be  if  you  wait  for  me  to 
ask  for  sympathy.  He  has  cautioned  you  against  my  argument.  You 
will  find  I  am  a  plain  speaking  man,  who  will  try  to  talk  to  you  as  one  man 
to  another.  I  never  have  asked  sympathy  of  anybody,  and  I  am  not  going 
to  ask  it  of  you  twelve.  I  would  rather  go  to  the  penitentiary  than  ask 
for  sympathy. 

I  have  lived  my  life,  and  I  have  fought  my  battles,  not  against  the 
weak  and  the  poor — anybody  can  do  that — but  against  power,  against 
injustice,  against  oppression,  and  I  have  asked  no  odds  from  them,  and  I 
never  shall. 

I  want  you  to  take  the  facts  of  this  case  as  they  are,  consider  the 
evidence  as  it  is,  and  then  if  you  twelve  men  can  find  on  your  conscience 
and  under  your  oath  any  reason  to  take  away  my  liberty,  well  and  good, 
the  responsibility  will  be  on  you.  I  would  rather  be  in  my  position  than 
in  yours  in  the  years  to  come. 

As  I  have  told  you,  I  am  tried  here  because  I  have  given  a  large 
part  of  my  life  and  my  services  to  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  the  weak, 
and  because  I  am  in  the  way  of  the  interests.  These  interests  would 
stop  my  voice — and  they  have  hired  many  vipers  to  help  them  do  it. 
They  would  stop  my  voice — my  voice,  which  from  the  time  I  was  a  prat¬ 
tling  babe,  my  father  and  mother  taught  me  to  raise  for  justice  and  free- 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


7 


dom,  and  in  the  cause  of  the  weak  and  the  poor.  They  would  stop  my 
voice  with  the  penitentiary.  Oh,  you  wild,  insane  members  of  the  Steel 
Trust  and  Erectors’  Association!  Oh,  you  mad  hounds  of  detectives 
who  are  willing  to  do  your  master’s  will!  Oh,  you  District  Attorneys! 
You  know  not  what  you  do.  Let  me  say  to  you,  that  if  you  send  me  to 
prison,  within  the  gray,  dim  walls  of  San  Quentin  there  will  brood  a  silence 
more  omnious  and  eloquent  than  any  words  that  my  poor  bps  could  ever 
frame.  And  do  you  think  that  you  could  destroy  the  hopes  of  the  poor 
and  the  oppressed  if  you  did  silence  me?  Don’t  you  know  that  upon 
my  persecution  and  destruction  would  arise  ten  thousand  men  abler  than 
I  have  been,  more  devoted  than  I  have  been,  and  ready  to  give  more  than 
I  have  given  in  a  righteous  cause? 

I  have  been,  perhaps,  interested  in  more  cases  for  the  weak  and 
poor  than  any  other  lawyer  in  America,  but  I  am  pretty  nearly  done, 
anyhow.  If  they  had  taken  me  20  years  ago,  it  might  have  been  worth 
their  while,  but  there  are  younger  men  than  I,  and  there  are  men  who  will 
not  be  awed  by  prison  bars,  by  district  attorneys,  by  detectives,  who  will 
do  this  work  when  lam  done. 

If  you  help  the  Erectors’  Association  put  me  into  the  penitentiary, 
gentlemen,  and  Mr.  Ford  stands  outside  the  doors  licking  his  picturesque 
chops  in  glee  at  my  destruction,  then  what?  Will  the  Labor  Cause  be 
dead?  Will  Ford’s  masters  ride  rough  shod  over  the  liberties  of  men? 
No!  Others  will  come  to  take  my  place,  and  they  will  do  the  work  better 
than  I  have  done  it  in  the  past. 

Gentlemen,  I  say  this  is  not  a  case  of  bribery  at  all.  You  know  the 
men  who  have  been  after  me,  and  the  interests  that  have  been  after  me, 
and  the  means  that  have  been  used.  What  have  they  done?  They  say 
a  bribery  was  seriously  intended  down  here  on  Main  Street,  close  to  my 
office,  which  I  will  speak  about  later,  but  have  they  tried  to  bet  a  bribe 
giver  or  a  bribe  taker?  No,  not  one.  Let  us  see  what  they  have  done. 
They  have  taken  Bert  Franklin  and  given  him  his  liberty,  without  costing 
him  a  cent.  They  have  taken  White  and  let  him  go  scot  free.  They 
have  taken  Mr.  Bain  and  Mrs.  Bain  and  have  not  even  filed  an  informa- 


8 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


tion  against  them.  They  have  taken  Harrington  and  Behm  and  brought 
them  here  and  given  them  immunity.  They  have  taken  Cooney  and 
Fitzpatrick  and  Mayer  and  let  them  go  unwhipped  of  justice.  More 
than  that,  gentlemen,  they  have  said  boldly  to  Franklin,  if  he  told  the 
truth,  and  the  circumstances  would  show  that  he  did — in  this  instance — 
they  have  said  boldly  to  him,  “If  you  know  anything  against  anybody 
in  Los  Angeles,  keep  your  mouth  closed,  but  help  us  put  Darrow  inside 
the  penitentiary.”  Is  there  any  question  that  they  have  done  all  this? 
If  I  am  guilty  others  associated  with  me  are  guilty,  too.  But  the  crimes 
of  all  the  others  are  washed  away  in  order  “to  get”  me. 

Gentlemen,  suppose  I  did  this  bribery,  suppose  I  did,  then  what? 
Is  there  any  man  in  whose  soul  lurks  a  suspicion  of  integrity  and  fair 
dealing,  is  there  any  civilized  man  on  earth  who  would  convict  me  under 
circumstances  like  that?  If  there  is,  gentlemen,  I  would  rather  dwell 
among  the  savages  with  District  Attorney  Ford  as  a  chief,  much  rather, 
because  I  might  raise  an  insurrection  against  him  and  get  some  justice. 

Will  you  tell  me  if  anywhere  there  could  be  an  American  jury,  or 
anywhere  in  the  English-speaking  world  there  could  be  found  a  jury  that 
would  for  a  moment  lend  itself  to  a  conspiracy  so  obvious  and  foul  as  this? 
If  there  is,  gentlemen,  then  send  me  to  prison.  Anyway,  when  I  reach 
prison,  they  can  do  nothing  more  to  me,  and  I  if  stay  here,  they  will  prob¬ 
ably  get  me  for  murder  after  awhile.  I  do  not  mean  the  murder  of  Ford, 
he  is  not  worth  it;  but  they  will  put  up  a  job  and  get  me  for  something 
else.  If  any  jury  could  possibly,  in  a  case  like  this,  find  me  guilty,  the 
quicker  it  is  done  the  better.  Then  I  will  be  out  of  my  trouble. 

Gentlemen,  if  the  State  of  California  can  afford  to  stand  it,  I  can. 
If  the  State  of  California,  and  the  fair  city  of  Los  Angeles,  can  lend  itself 
to  a  crime  like  this,  the  victim  will  be  ready  when  the  time  comes.  But 
let  me  tell  you,  that,  if  under  such  testimony  as  you  have  heard  here,  and 
under  the  sort  of  conspiracy  you  have  seen  laid  bare  here,  you  should 
send  me  to  prison,  it  would  leave  a  stain  upon  the  fair  fame  of  your  city 
and  your  state  that  would  last  while  these  hills  endure,  and  so  long  as  the 
Pacific  waves  should  wash  your  sandy  coast.  Tell  me  that  any  American 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


9 


jury  would  do  it!  Gentlemen,  I  could  tell  you  that  I  did  this  bribery, 
and  you  would  turn  me  loose.  If  I  did  not  think  so,  I  would  not  think 
you  were  Americans  of  spirit  or  heart,  or  sense  of  justice.  Gentlemen, 
if  within  this  courthouse,  men  could  be  bought  and  bribed  with  immunity, 
could  be  threatened  and  coached  and  browbeaten,  and  if  the  gold  of  the 
Erectors’  Association  could  be  used  to  destroy  human  life — if  that  could 
succeed,  it  would  be  better  that  these  walls  should  crumble  into  dust. 

I  do  not  know  you  twelve  men.  I  never  saw  you  before,  but  you 
have  heard  my  story  on  the  stand,  you  have  seen  me  here  from  day  to 
day.  You  have  seen  the  class  of  people  who  have  come  here  to  condemn 
me  and  befoul  my  name.  You  know  the  class  of  people  who  have  come 
here  to  tell  you  what  my  reputation  has  been.  You  have  seen  the  witnesses 
who  have  come  forward  to  testify  in  this  case,  and  you  are  not  insane, 
and  I  tell  you  gentlemen,  I  do  not  want  you  to  think  I  am  worried  about 
it  now;  but  I  have  spent  troubled  days  and  sleepless  nights  over  the  misery 
that  they  have  already  caused  me  and  those  near  and  dear  to  me.  But 
now  I  have  no  doubt  about  any  Jury  under  these  circumstances,  no  more 
doubt  than  I  had  as  a  child  when  I  laid  my  head  on  my  mother’s  breast. 
Men  cannot  lose  all  their  heart  except  by  a  surgical  operation,  and  there 
are  not  here  in  Los  Angeles  twelve  men  without  some  heart.  If  there 
were  they  would  have  been  in  the  employ  of  the  District  Attorney  long  ago. 

Now,  gentlemen,  let’s  see  what  they  have  made  by  their  conspiracy? 
These  are  strong-arm  men.  They  have  the  Grand  Jury,  two  of  them; 
with  one  they  can  reach  across  the  continent  and  get  whom  they  want; 
and  when  they  get  him,  they  take  him  before  the  other  body,  and  they 
say  to  him — what,  gentlemen?  They  don’t  say  "Your  money  or  your 
life,”  but  they  say  "Your  liberty  or  your  manhood;  take  your  choice.” 
And  the  kind  of  men  they  choose  give  up  their  manhood.  How  much 
credit  can  you  give  to  the  word  of  a  man  who  finds  his  liberty  held  before 
him  as  a  bait  for  his  testimony?  Gentlemen,  I  have  tried  a  good  many 
cases  in  my  time!  I  have  been  35  or  36  years  in  this  profession,  and  did 
you  send  me  to  prison,  why,  I  have  practiced  law  long  enough  anyhow; 
I  was  going  to  have  a  vacation.  Of  course  there  are  pleasanter  places 


10 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


to  take  vacations  than  the  one  where  Ford  wants  to  put  me — but  I  have 
practiced  law  a  good  long  time,  and  I  tell  you  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  a 
case  where  any  American  jury  convicted  anybody,  even  the  humblest, 
upon  such  testimony  as  that  of  Franklin  and  Harrington,  and  I  don’t 
expect  to  live  long  enough  to  find  that  sort  of  a  jury.  Let  me  say  this, 
gentlemen,  there  are  other  things  in  the  world  besides  bribery,  there  are 
other  crimes  that  are  worse.  It  is  a  fouler  crime  to  bear  false  witness 
against  your  fellowman,  whether  you  do  it  in  a  cowardly  way  in  an  address 
to  a  jury,  or  from  a  witness  chair — infinitely  fouler. 

Now,  let  me  put  it  to  you  as  to  men  who  value  your  own  liberty— 
because  you  all  value  your  own  liberty,  and  I  trust  you  value  mine,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  you  do — suppose  any  infamous  scoundrel  taken  in  criminal 
conduct  could  know  that  he  could  turn  on  you  or  on  me  to  save  himself, 
would  your  liberty  be  safe?  It  would  not  be  as  safe  as  mine,  for  you 
might  not  go  before  as  fair-minded  a  jury  as  I  feel  that  I  am  before  today. 
Suppose  your  hired  man  could  be  taken  in  some  act  of  crime,  and  the 
District  Attorney  could  say  to  him,  “All  right,  here  is  the  penitentiary, 
but  I  will  let  you  out  if  you  will  fasten  the  crime  on  your  employer.” 
Gentlemen,  would  you  be  safe? 

GOVERNMENT  BY  DETECTIVES 

Suppose  you  thought  that  I  was  guilty,  suppose  you  thought  so — 
would  you  dare  as  honest  men,  protecting  society,  would  you  dare  to 
say  by  your  verdict  that  scoundrels  like  this  should  be  saved  from  their 
own  sins,  by  charging  those  sins  to  someone  else?  If  60,  gentlemen, 
when  you  go  back  to  your  homes,  you  had  better  kiss  your  wives  a  fond 
goodbye,  and  take  your  little  children  more  tenderly  in  your  arms  than 
ever  before,  because,  though  today  it  is  my  turn,  tomorrow  it  may  be 
yours.  This  consideration,  gentlemen,  is  more  important  to  orderly 
government,  to  the  preservation  of  human  liberty,  than  “to  get”  any  one 
man,  no  matter  how  hard  they  want  “to  get”  him. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  am  going  to  be  honest  with  you  in  this  matter. 
The  McNamara  case  was  a  hard  fight.  I  will  tell  you  the  truth  about  it, 
then,  if  you  want  to  send  me  to  prison,  go  ahead,  “it  is  up  to  you.”  It 
was  a  hard  fight.  Here  was  the  District  Attorney  with  his  sleuths.  Here 
was  Bums  with  his  hounds.  Here  was  the  Erectors’  Association  with  its 
gold.  A  man  could  not  stir  out  of  his  home  or  out  of  his  office  without 
being  attacked  by  these  men  ready  to  commit  all  sorts  of  deeds.  Besides, 
they  had  the  Grand  Jury,  we  didn’t.  They  had  the  Police  Force,  we  didn't. 
They  had  organized  Government,  we  didn’t.  We  had  to  work  fast  and 


IN  EIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


11 


hard.  We  had  to  work  the  best  we  could,  and  I  would  like  to  compare 
notes  wkh  them.  I  wish,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  some  power  had 
been  given  to  us  to  call  before  this  jury  all  the  telegrams  sent  by  the  Dis¬ 
trict  Attorney’s  office  and  sent  by  Mr.  Burns.  I  wish  some  Grand  Jury 
could  be  impanelled  to  inquire  into  their  misdeeds.  But  no,  we  cannot. 
They  sent  out  their  subpoenas  and  they  got  two  or  three  hundred  tele¬ 
grams,  public  and  private,  that  had  been  sent  from  our  office.  What 
did  they  get?  Have  they  shown  you  anything?  Do  you  think  you  could 
run  a  Sunday  School  without  any  more  incriminating  evidence  than  they 
got  from  those  telegrams?  I  have  never  tried  to  run  one,  but  I  don’t 
believe  you  could.  What  did  they  get?  By  the  wonderful  knowledge 
of  Mr.  Ford  and  by  his  marvelous  genius,  they  found  the  key  to  our  code. 
He  forgot  his  bile  and  bitterness  for  one  night  and  worked  out  a  key — 
and  then  what?  A  telegram  to  Rappaport  on  the  29th,  saying  that  we 
would  give  him  a  thousand  dollars,  and  then  a  telegram  on  the  first  of 
December — “Better  not  spend  the  thousand.” 

They  had  detectives  in  our  office.  They  had  us  surrounded  by 
gumshoe  and  keyhole  men  at  every  step,  and  what  did  they  secure?  Noth¬ 
ing,  nothing.  I  am  surprised,  gentlemen,  that  we  were  so  peaceful  in 
fighting  the  District  Attorney  and  Burns.  I  scarcely  know  why  we  had 
a  code,  except  that  it  looked  better,  and  men  in  business  generally  use 
codes,  and  I  knew  they  had  one,  for  here  and  there  a  stray  telegraph  opera¬ 
tor  would  send  me  their  dispatches  the  same  as  the  managers  would  give 
my  dispatches  to  Burns.  The  poor  would  help  me  and  the  rich  would 
help  them,  but  the  help  of  the  rich  was  always  of  greater  avail  than  the 
help  of  the  poor,  because  they  were  the  stronger. 

What  did  they  get,  with  all  their  grand  juries  and  all  their  powers, 
gentlemen?  They  got  conclusive  evidence,  it  seems  to  me,  that  everything 
was  regular,  that  nothing  illegal  was  done,  and  with  all  the  witnesses — we 
interviewed  some  hundreds — with  all  the  time  of  twenty  or  thirty  men 
day  and  night  spent  upon  that  cause,  with  all  the  money  which  we  were 
obliged  to  spend — now  let  us  look  at  the  pitiful  thing  that  they  have  brought 
to  this  jury  to  try  to  have  you  think  badly  of  me.  No  matter  if  I  had 
killed  my  grandmother,  it  would  not  prove  that  I  had  sought  to  bribe 
Lockwood ;  it  might  cause  you  to  have  a  bad  opinion  of  me,  but  you  could 
not  convict  me  of  bribery  on  that  opinion. 

But  what  did  they  get?  Why,  it  is  shown  here  that  before  I  left 
the  City  of  Chicago  in  May,  a  Burns  sleuth  set  a  trap  to  catch  me,  and 
he  was  here  and  testified — Biddinger.  Who  is  Biddinger?  You  saw  him, 
you  heard  him  testify.  If  there  is  any  man  on  this  jury  who  could  see 


12 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  FLEA 


Biddinger  and  would  not  take  my  word  against  his,  then  put  me  away, 
put  me  away.  If  there  is  any  man  on  earth  excepting  Ford  wbo  would 
not  take  my  word  against  Biddinger,  then  I  wish  somebody  would  shoot 
me  if  you  cannot  get  rid  of  me  in  any  other  way. 

What  did  he  say?  I  will  analyze  his  story  for  a  minute — his  story 
which  anybody  with  any  brains  would  know  was  a  fabrication — except 
what  he  told  on  cross-examination,  when  he  very  nearly  admitted  the 
whole  truth.  Under  the  guise  of  proving  to  this  jury  that  he  was  an  im¬ 
portant  witness,  Mr.  F ord  got  him  to  tell  of  an  alleged  conversation  with  J.  B. 
McNamara,  which  was  probably  never  held;  and  then,  when  Ford  came  to 
argue  his  case,  he  willfully,  maliciously,  feloniously,  criminally,  cruelly,  dis¬ 
torted  the  evidence  from  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  introduced,  to  6how 
that  J.  B.  McNamara  mentioned  me  before  I  ever  saw  him.  Therefore 
I  must  have  been  one  of  the  people  who  inspired  his  deed!  For  God’s 
6ake,  Ford,  if  you  are  ever  made  District  Attorney  of  this  county,  if  you 
are  able  to  climb  up  the  ladder  of  fame,  higher  and  higher  still,  I  would 
rather  spend  my  days  in  the  meanest  prison  pen  that  the  wit  and  the 
malice  of  men  can  contrive  than  change  places  with  you,  infinitely  rather. 
There  are  some  things  worse  than  prison.  Ford  introduced  that  state¬ 
ment,  and  then  he  told  you  it  showed  that  I  inspired  McNamara’s  act. 
What  do  you  twelve  men  think  about  a  person  who  could  make  a  state¬ 
ment  like  that? 

Biddinger  testified  that  he  had  a  conversation  with  McNamara.  He 
said  he  came  to  my  office  and  told  me  about  it,  and  told  me  about  some 
trinkets  that  he  had,  that  another  detective  came  with  him,  one  whom 
I  had  employed  in  other  matters  and  that  part  was  true.  He  admitted 
on  cross  examination  that  he  did  tell  me  that  Burns  had  traitors  in  our 
camp  with  whom  he  was  consulting,  and  that  he  offered  to  tell  me  about 
them.  He  told  me  that  some  of  the  members  of  the  Executive  Board 
of  the  organization  I  was  defending  were  in  the  pay  of  Burns,  and  this, 
perhaps,  was  true;  they  had  traitors  of  ours  in  their  employ.  These 
traitors  infest  every  labor  union  in  this  country.  The  money  of  the 
employer  is  used  to  hire  men  to  betray  their  comrades  into  the  commission 
of  crime.  I  know  this.  I  have  fought  many  of  these  cases,  gentlemen, 
and  I  have  fought  them  as  squarely  as  I  could  possibly  fight  with  such 
men. 

One  of  the  cheapest,  meanest,  littlest,  one  of  the  most  contemptible 
lies  that  he  uttered  to  this  jury  was  when  he  discussed  the  testimony  of 
Ex-Senator  William  E.  Mason  of  Chicago,  who  testified  to  my  reputation. 
Ford  says,  “You  mean  Mason,  the  seatmate  of  Lorimer?”  Now,  he  did 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


13 


not  even  know  better,  he  did  not  know  anything  about  Mason,  he  was 
willing  to  perpetrate  any  he  to  take  away  my  liberty.  Mason  left  the 
Senate  ten  years  before  Lorimer  ever  entered  it — and  they  were  always 
bitter  enemies.  And  yet  because  Lorimer  bad  been  expelled  from  the 
Senate,  Ford  thought  if  he  made  that  lying,  malicious  statement,  you 
twelve  men  would  be  more  apt  to  send  me  to  the  penitentiary.  Why, 
gentlemen,  if  I  have  to  do  one  or  the  other,  if  I  must  choose,  I  will  go  down 
on  Main  Street  and  bribe  jurors  rather  than  bear  false  witness  like  Ford. 
Is  there  any  comparison?  There  is  some  boldness,  some  courage,  or  at 
least  some  recklessness  to  the  one;  there  is  nothing  but  cowardice  and  in¬ 
famy  in  the  other. 

PLAYED  ACCORDING  TO  THE  RULES 

Well,  Biddinger  comes  out  here,  and  he  telephones  me  to  meet  him 
at  the  Alexandria  hotel,  and  I  go,  and  I  write  on  an  envelope  the  number 
of  my  telephone.  Wonderful  discovery!  Sherlock  Holmes!  Bums! 
Ford!  Wonderful!  Here  is  an  envelope  that  has  various  figures  on  it 
“Home  6745-10” — whatever  you  are  a  mind  to  call  it.  Crime  in  August, 
heard  of  for  the  first  ime  a  year  later!  The  testimony  of  Biddinger, 
prompted  by  Ford — not  by  the  mind  of  Ford,  but  by  the  jaw  of  Ford. 
Crime!  He  met  me  at  the  hotel,  be  told  me  he  was  ready  to  give  me  in¬ 
formation  about  spies;  that  he  was  going  to  San  Francisco  in  a  few  days 
and  could  put  me  in  touch  with  somebody  who  had  betrayed  us  up  there. 
I  was  not  sure  of  him.  Nobody  is  sure  of  a  double-crosser.  Sometimes 
he  is  your  fellow,  and  sometimes  the  other  man’s.  You  are  taking  your 
chances.  I  had  others  besides  Biddinger — some  who  kept  their  money 
and  rendered  me  service,  and  gave  me  back  reports  of  their  detectives  in 
my  office. 

Biddinger  sent  me  a  telegram,  as  I  testified,  and  here  comes  Ford 
and  says,  “Did  you  send  this  mysterious  telegram  to  Biddinger,  saying 
that  you  would  be  in  San  Francisco?”  I  said,  “Yes,  I  sent  a  telegram, 
I  don’t  remember  the  wording.”  “Is  it  in  your  handwriting?”  “No.” 
“Whose  is  it?”  “I  don’t  know.”  “Is  it  your  wife’s?”  How  much 
would  you  take  to  have  a  mind  like  Ford’s?  I  will  tell  you  what  you 
would  take  if  you  had  a  mind  like  Ford,  you  would  take  arsenic.  What 
difference  who  wrote  the  dispatch,  if  I  said  I  sent  it? 

He  picks  out  a  little  piece  of  paper  on  which  is  written  “6097,”  which 
he  says  was  the  number  of  the  room  I  occupied  in  the  Palace  Hotel,  and 
asks  me  who  wrote  those  numbers — asks  me! — Ford,  Ford — Ford  asks 
me!  I  cannot  help  it.  I  am  here.  I  may  die.  “To  every  man  on  this 


14 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


earth  death  cometh  soon  or  late.”  I  do  not  mind  death.  It  is  rather 
galling  though  to  be  eaten  alive  by  ants.  That  is  all  that  worries  me  over 
this  transaction.  He  asked  me  whether  I  wrote  that.  I  did  not  think 
so.  Probably  Biddinger  wrote  it,  I  might  have.  I  don’t  care,  and  I 
said  so.  Then  he  asked  me  to  write  those  figures  Then  what  did  he  do? 
He!  Why,  he  tells  this  jury  I  disguised  my  hand  when  I  wrote  those 
figures.  Did  I?  Do  you  know  whether  I  did  or  not?  Did  you  see  the 
figures  I  wrote?  Did  anybody  testify  as  to  whether  it  was  my  natural 
handwriting  or  not?  Did  he  introduce  them?  Did  he  show  them  to  the 
jury?  Wrhy,  no,  nothing  of  the  sort.  But  he  told  this  jury  that  I  tried  to 
disguise  my  hand  in  writing  a  set  of  figures,  which  I  testified  might  have 
been  the  number  of  my  room. 

And  I  went  to  San  Francisco  and  saw  Biddinger,  and  he  told  me  he 
would  take  me  where  I  could  see  a  meeting  between  Burns  and  one  member 
of  our  Executive  Board,  and  I  gave  him  $200  after  giving  him  $500  for  the 
same  purpose,  and  of  course  Biddinger  did  not  keep  his  faith. 

And  here  comes  in  another  little  miserable  bit  of  perjury  to  help 
strengthen  their  case,  a  miserable  little  bit  of  perjury  that  is  as  plain  as 
sunrise.  No  man,  gentlemen,  honestly  believes  that  I  had  anything  to 
do  with  bribing  or  attempting  to  bribe  Lockwood  down  at  the  corner  of 
Third  and  Los  Angeles  Streets.  Of  course,  there  may  be  men  who  think 
1  would  do  it.  Ford  thinks  so,  I  guess.  He  would  think  anything  to  send 
a  man  to  the  penitentiary.  But  could  anybody  else  on  earth  think  that? 
I  am  not  talking  about  my  goodness,  gentlemen.  I  have  not  too  much 
goodness,  but  I  always  had  all  that  I  could  carry  around;  sometimes 
more  than  I  ought  to  have  carried  around;  and  I  have  played  according 
to  the  rules  of  the  game,  and  have  taken  a  little  hand  in  this  trial,  and  you 
can  compare  my  work,  as  to  whether  it  is  according  to  the  rules  of  the 
game,  with  any  of  the  other  lawyers  in  the  case;  and  I  have  played  it  that 
way  for  35  years,  and  I  have  never  done  anything  of  this  kind  nor  had 
to  do  anything  of  this  kind.  But  that  is  not  what  I  am  discussing. 

If  you  twelve  men  think  that  I,  with  35  years  of  experience,  general 
attorney  of  a  railroad  company  of  the  City  of  Chicago,  attorney  for  the 
Elevated  Railroad  Company,  with  all  kinds  of  clients  and  important 
cases — if  you  think  that  I  would  pick  out  a  place  half  a  block  from  my 
office  and  send  a  man  with  money  in  his  hand  in  broad  daylight  to  go 
down  on  the  street  corner  to  pass  $4,000,  and  then  skip  over  to  another 
street  corner  and  pass  $500 — two  of  the  most  prominent  streets  in  the 
City  of  Los  Angeles;  if  you  think  I  did  that,  gentlemen,  why  find  me 
guilty.  I  certainly  belong  in  some  State  Institution.  Whether  you 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


15 


select  the  right  one  or  not  is  another  question,  but  I  certainly  belong  in 
some  one  of  them,  and  I  will  probebly  get  treated  in  one  the  same  as  in 
the  other.  I  say,  nobody  in  their  senses  could  believe  that  story,  and 
Ford  knew  it,  and  to  bolster  it  up  by  a  contemptible  liar,  he  has  Biddinger 
say  that  I  passed  $500  in  the  elevator,  and  that  Biddinger  then  told  me 
that  it  was  a  careless  way  to  do  business.  I  know  who  told  him  to  say 
that.  I  know  who  inspired  that  perjury.  Of  course,  I  did  not  pass  $500 
in  the  elevator,  but  if  I  had,  I  had  just  as  much  right  to  give  that  $500 
for  that  purpose  as  I  would  have  to  buy  $500  worth  of  hogs,  just  exactly. 
I  was  doing  exactly  what  they  were  doing,  what  Burns  admitted  he  was 
doing,  what  was  done  in  all  their  cases,  what  Sam  Browne  says  they  did, 
when  he  testified  that  they  filled  our  office  with  detectives.  And  here 
comes  this  wonderful  man,  so  honest,  so  pure,  so  high,  so  mighty,  Ford, 
who  says  the  State  has  a  right  to  do  that,  who  says  the  State  has  a  right 
to  put  spies  in  the  camp  of  the  “criminal,”  but  the  “criminal”  hasn’t  the 
right  to  put  spies  in  their  camp.  Isn’t  that  wonderful,  gentlemen?  Here 
is  a  contest  between  two  parties  in  litigation;  the  prosecution  has  a  right 
to  load  us  up  with  spies  and  detectives  and  informers,  and  we  cannot 
put  anyone  in  their  office.  Now,  what  do  you  think  of  that?  Do  any  of 
you  believe  it? 

Let  me  clear  up  more  of  this  drift-wood  that  has  been  thrown  around 
the  case  for  the  purpose  of  poisoning  the  minds  of  this  jury  against  me — 
who  have  spent  a  lifetime,  not  all  good — I  wish  it  were,  I  wish  it 
were.  I  have  been  human.  I  have  done  both  good  and  evil,  but  I  hope 
when  the  last  reckoning  is  made  the  good  will  overbalance  the  evil,  and 
if  it  does,  then  I  have  done  well.  I  hope  it  will  so  overbalance  it  that 
you  jurors  will  believe  it  is  not  to  the  interest  of  the  State  to  have  me  spend 
the  rest  of  my  life  in  prison — though  I  could  find  some  useful  work  even 
there. 

The  next  thing  they  accused  me  of  was  the  flight  from  the  state  of 
Flora  Caplan,  wife  of  David  Caplan,  a  defendant  with  the  McNamaras. 
It  is  too  absurd  to  talk  about — a  woman  who  could  not  be  a  witness, 
who  could  only  be  hounded  and  spied  upon  by  detectives  and  crooks; 
who  could  only  be  driven  from  her  employment  into  starvation  by  District 
Attorneys  and  their  accomplices,  a  woman  whom  I  knew  could  never 
appear  in  the  case,  and  whom  I  had  no  more  to  do  with  than  the  man  in 
the  moon.  Let  me  tell  you  this,  and  you  can  make  the  most  of  it:  If 
she  had  been  the  most  important  witness  that  the  State  had,  I  would  have 
said  to  her,  “Go,  get  away  from  these  hounds  before  they  murder  you. 
When  the  time  comes  that  they  want  you,  you  can  come  back.”  Nobody 


16 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


can  subpoena  a  witness  and  hold  him  in  the  State  for  more  than  six  months. 
Witnesses  have  a  right  to  go  and  come  on  the  face  of  the  earth  as  they 
wish,  reporting  for  duty  when  the  time  comes.  And  this  was  the  first 
day  of  August  and  she  would  not  have  been  needed  until  the  first  of  Jan¬ 
uary  at  the  nearest.  And  yet  they  have  brought  it  up  here  as  a  reason 
why  I  shall  be  convicted  in  another  matter.  You  heard  the  story.  You 
heard  how  she  went,  and  why  she  went.  Is  there  any  evidence  that  I 
knew  a  single  thing  about  it?  What  object  would  I  have  had?  What 
would  any  one  of  you  have  done?  If  you  had  any  red  blood  in  your 
veins,  you  would  have  clubbed  somebody  or  sent  her  away;  you  would 
probably  have  sent  her  away.  You  ought  to  have  done  both. 

PROSECUTION  BY  CRIME  AND  INFAMY 

Now  let  me  show  you  more  of  the  villainy  and  the  infamy  of  this 
prosecution  which  reeks  from  beginning  to  end  with  crime  and  corruption, 
and  with  bloodlessness  and  heartlessness  to  the  last  degree.  Mr.  Ford 
stood  before  this  court  and  this  jury,  and  said  that  I  bribed  the  witness 
Behm  to  commit  perjury.  The  next  day  his  chief  said  it  was  not  true, 
but  in  his  argument  he  has  stated  it  again,  among  the  infamous  lies  that 
have  fallen  from  his  lips.  Bribe  Behm!  The  evidence  in  this  case  shows 
that  every  dollar  he  ever  got  from  me  was  for  his  expenses,  pay  for  his 
time  and  for  the  man  on  his  farm — $412  altogether.  But  Ford  says  I 
bribed  him  to  commit  perjury.  Gentlemen,  is  there  safety  for  any  one, 
when  men  like  Ford  are  running  at  large?  Bribe  Behm!  What  is  the 
evidence  that  they  produce?  Is  it  that  LeCompte  Davis  and  I  had  Behm 
together  in  Davis’  office  all  evening?  Then  Ford  gets  Behm  to  swear 
that  he  came  to  my  office  the  next  morning,  so  I  could  be  alone  with  him, 
but  Davis’  testimony  and  my  testimony  is  that  Behm  never  was  in  my 
office  at  that  time. 

What  else  about  Behm?  They  begin  their  testimony  back  in  Chicago 
where  they  say  I  got  Behm  to  come  out  here  for  an  illegal  purpose.  Did 
I?  You  heard  his  testimony.  Mr.  Ford  says  that  I  had  no  right  to 
send  a  man  into  jail  to  interview  his  wonderful  witness  McManigal,  and 
he  says  I  committed  a  crime  in  bringing  Mrs.  McManigal  here.  What 
is  the  evidence  on  that?  Mrs.  McManigal  has  not  become  a  traitor. 
It  is  a  wonder  that  Ford  does  not  indict  her  so  that  she  can  be  a  traitor. 
Ford  likes  traitors  and  informers  and  crooks  and  detectives  and  heartless 
knaves.  Everybody  is  a  liar  in  this  case  but  Franklin.  Everybody 
is  a  crook  in  this  case  but  the  whitewinged  Harrington.  All  crooks. 
Davis  is  a  liar;  Job  Harriman  is  a  liar;  Wolff  is  a  liar;  Older  is  a  liar.  These 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


17 


newspapermen  are  liars;  all  are  liars,  and  the  only  simon  pure  man,  the 
only  man  who  stands  here  as  a  credit  to  the  beauty  of  your  Los  Angeles 
climate,  and  the  glory  of  your  Los  Angeles  mountains,  is  Franklin.  Gen¬ 
tlemen,  you  ought  to  advertise  him  for  the  tourists. 

Of  course,  Behm  says  that  I  told  him  to  lie.  First,  I  began  in  Chicago, 
where  I  asked  him  to  come  out  here  with  Mrs.  McManigal.  Who  else 
asked  her  to  come?  Why,  Bums.  He  offered  her  money  to  come.  His 
men  met  her  at  the  train  when  she  did  come.  They  wanted  her,  and  she 
had  as  much  right  to  come  at  my  solicitation  as  at  that  of  Burns.  The 
evidence  is  that  she  came  to  me.  She  said  she  didn’t  believe  that  her 
husband  had  made  these  confessions,  and  she  wanted  to  come,  and  I  gave 
her  money  out  of  the  defense  fund  to  come  and  see  her  husband.  And 
suppose  she  did  come  to  get  an  interview  with  Ortie  McManigal?  Why 
do  you  suppose  his  name  was  put  on  the  back  of  the  indictment?  Names 
of  the  witnesses  are  put  on  the  back  of  indictments  for  the  very  purpose 
of  permitting  them  to  be  interviewed  by  the  defendant  and  his  counsel. 
Now,  there  was  no  chance  for  me  to  go  and  see  Ortie  McManigal,  but  his 
wife  might  see  him,  and  his  uncle,  Behm,  might  see  him.  In  that  way, 
I  might  prepare  my  case.  I  had  as  much  right  to  do  that,  gentlemen, 
as  one  of  you  has  to  consult  a  lawyer  or  a  doctor.  Just  the  same  right, 
and  they  know  it;  and  yet,  for  doing  what  every  lawyer  does  I  am  put 
down  as  a  criminal  in  Southern  California,  the  land  of  free  men  and  free 
women.  All  right,  gentlemen,  Ford  thinks  that  would  be  California  hos¬ 
pitality,  no  doubt. 

Well,  Behm  went  before  the  Grand  Jury  and  gave  his  testimony, 
and  he  says  that  he  swore  falsely,  and  that  Davis  and  I  drilled  him.  I 
know  he  did  swear  falsely  in  some  respects,  for  he  swore  that  I  did  not 
give  him  any  money,  and  I  did.  I  paid  it  to  him  by  check  on  a  Los  Angeles 
bank,  where,  of  course,  the  detectives  would  know  of  it  the  next  day. 
Davis  and  I  both  testified  that  he  came  to  us  and  that  we  told  him  after 
the  first  conference,  to  answer  all  questions  excepting  such  as  we  thought 
were  incompetent,  irrelevent  and  immaterial  and  to  these  he  was  to  reply, 
“That  don’t  concern  the  case.  ” 

FREDERICK’S  JUDGMENT  SEAT 

Let  us  next  look  at  Dickelman.  Here  is  more  of  the  wonderful 
fairness  of  this  wonderful  District  Attorney  that  holds  your  life  and 
your  destiny  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  What  about  Dickelman?  What 
is  the  evidence?  Dickelman  was  with  a  Burns  detective  in  Albuquerque. 
We  had  as  much  right  to  take  him  to  Chicago  as  they  had  to  take  him  to 


18 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


Albuquerque,  and  Dickelman  himself  swears  that  he  was  given  S100  to 
return  to  Los  Angeles  when  he  should  be  wanted.  Talk  about  fairness! 
They  talk  about  Hammerstrom  because  he  is  Mrs.  Darrow’s  brother. 
It  is  not  malice  against  Mrs.  Darrow,  it  is  not  malice  against  Hammerstrom, 
it  is  malice  against  me.  They  would  take  that  boy  and  indict  and  prose¬ 
cute  him,  and  let  Franklin,  Harrington,  Behm,  Bain,  White,  Krueger,  every¬ 
body  else  go,  because  he  islone  near  to  me.  But  what  about  Dickelman  ?  What 
is  the  evidence?  Maybe  my  word  is  not  good  any  more.  It  used  to  be; 
even  my  note  was  good  once;  my  neighbors  and  my  friends  and  lawyers 
used  to  take  my  word — they  used  to  take  it  in  place  of  a  stipulation  in 
court.  They  used  to  take  any  statement  I  made  in  court  or  out.  Maybe 
their  confidence  will  be  withdrawn  after  Ford’s  onsloughts. 

Davis  testifies  that  he  came  into  my  office  when  a  man  was  present 
who  said  he  was  a  detective,  and  who  told  us  that  Burns’  men  had  Dickel¬ 
man  in  Albuquerque,  hiding  out,  and  that  he  (Davis)  and  I  together 
asked  this  young  man  and  his  companion  to  go  and  see  him,  and  if  they 
thought  we  could  make  use  of  him,  to  take  him  away  from  the  Bums’ 
detective.  Was  there  anything  wrong  about  that?  Does  anybody  claim 
that  was  illegal?  Does  Dickelman  deny  that  testimony?  Does  anyone 
deny  it?  And  yet  I  am  denounced  as  a  crook,  a  man  fit  for  the  peniten¬ 
tiary.  And  they  undertake  to  prove  by  their  precious  man  Franklin 
that  Davis  advised  him  to  commit  perjury,  and  told  him  to  make  up  his 
story  and  take  it  to  Ford,  but  there  is  no  prosecution  for  that.  “Darrow 
is  the  man  we  are  after,  if  you  know  anything  about  anybody  else,  keep 
your  mouth  shut,  but  help  us  get  Darrow.” 

Gentlemen,  some  of  you  have  lived  quite  a  while  in  the  world,  did 
any  of  you  ever  hear  of  a  thing  like  this  since  you  were  born?  Aren't 
you  ashamed  of  your  people,  your  officials  and  your  State?  If  I  am  guilty, 
which  I  have  told  you  in  every  way,  under  oath  and  not  under  oath,  that 
I  am  not — and  I  have  proven,  I  believe,  fortunately  by  a  greater  array  of 
honest  men  and  women  than  are  often  gathered  by  a  man  accused  of 
crime — if  I  am  guilty,  is  there  one  man  in  this  jury  box,  one  man,  upon 
your  oath,  your  conscience — is  there  one  man  here  who  loves  Justice  and 
fair  play,  who  will  say  that  I  should  be  singled  out  from  among  this  mess, 
and  every  crook  and  thief  and  spy  and  informer  and  traitor  in  this  case 
get  immunity?  Who  are  these  wonderful  men  who  hold  the  destiny 
of  their  fellowmen  in  the  hollow  of  their  hands?  Who  are  they? — given 
the  infinite  power  of  forgiving  sin — given  the  power  of  life  and  death, 
and  the  power  of  punishment?  They  say  to  every  thug  and  crook  that 
comes  across  their  path,  “Come  to  Los  Angeles;  come  to  the  judgment 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


19 


seat  of  Fredericks,  and  ‘though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  I  will  wash  them 
white  as  snow.”  Gentlemen,  under  circumstances  like  this,  I  could 
afford  to  go  to  prison,  but  let  me  tell  you  that  while  a  verdict  of  guilty 
would  place  a  blot  upon  my  name,  it  would  place  one  infinitely  darker 
upon  the  name  of  every  person  connected  with  an  outrage  like  this. 

Now,  let’s  get  to  the  rest  of  the  case.  There  are  a  few  little  things 
to  clear  up,  just  a  few  little  things,  sort  of  specks  on  the  moon.  They 
say  that  Franklin  went  to — how  many  fellows?  Smith,  Young,  Krueger, 
Yonkin,  Underwood?  I  am  not  going  to  spend  much  time  about  this, 
because  I  want  to  get  where  I  can  discuss  this  Lockwood  case  before  I 
go  to  the  penitentiary. 

Did  I  have  anything  to  do  with  soliciting  Yonkin,  Smith  and  Under¬ 
wood?  I  sometimes  think  I  did.  I’ll  tell  you  why — because  Franklin 
says  I  did  not.  Franklin  says  I  did  not  know  anything  about  these  solic¬ 
itations,  that  he  never  even  told  me.  Now,  that  means  something;  of 
course  he  didn’t  tell  me.  I  never  heard  of  it,  any  more  than  any  one 
of  you  twelve  men.  Franklin  says  I  didn’t.  As  long  as  Franklin  says 
I  didn’t,  I  suppose  even  Ford  would  believe  it.  But  how  comes  it  that 
this  man  was  going  around  offering  bribes  to  jurors  that  I  didn’t  know  of? 
Suppose  I  had  given  him  omnibus  authority,  and  he  had  gone  to  four  men 
who  had  turned  him  down,  don’t  you  suppose  he  would  have  told  me? 
Do  you  suppose  I  wouldn’t  have  known  it?  Think  of  it, here  is  a  man 
who  goes  to  four  men,  without  any  solicitation  from  anybody,  least  of 
all  from  me;  he  never  tells  me  a  single  word  about  it.  If  he  went  to  these 
four  without  my  knowledge  or  direction,  what  about  the  others?  Some¬ 
body  knew  of  these  attempts,  somebody  besides  me,  and  I  think  I  can 
hear  Mr.  Fredericks  saying  tomorrow,  after  my  last  words  have  been 
spoken,  “How  could  all  of  these  things  have  gone  on  and  the  defendant 
not  know  of  them?”  How  could  it?  Of  all  the  people  connected  with 
this  case,  I  would  have  been  the  last  person  to  know.  I  was  a  total  stranger 
in  this  county.  Every  other  lawyer  connected  with  this  case  was  known 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  this  county.  If  somebody  had  been 
approached  at  the  instigation  of  counsel,  any  of  the  other  counsel  would 
have  known  about  it  a  hundred  times  more  readily  than  I.  Of  all  the 
people  connected  with  this  case  who  could  possibly  have  known  or  heard 
it  in  any  way,  I  was  the  last  person  and  the  one  most  unlikely  to  have 
known  or  heard  of  it  in  any  way.  Ford  speaks  of  me  as  though  I  were  a 
cheap  jury  briber,  ready  to  give  a  bribe  to  anybody  who  happened  along. 
It  is  a  wonder  that  I  didn’t  try  to  bribe  Ford.  You  do  not  know  me. 
Counsel  would  not  let  you  read  my  books.  If  you  turn  me  loose,  I  hope 


20 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


some  time  you  will  have  a  chance  to  read  my  books,  so  you  will  see  if  you 
have  made  a  mistake.  Now  I  am  as  fitted  for  jury  bribing  as  a  Methodist 
preacher  for  tending  bar.  By  all  my  training,  inclination,  and  habit, 
I  am  about  the  last  person  in  all  this  world  who  could  possibly  have  un¬ 
dertaken  such  a  thing.  I  do  not  intimate  for  a  moment  that  anybody 
else  would,  but  in  all  this  situation,  mine  was  the  position  which  needed 
to  be  guarded  the  most  carefully,  as  these  events  have  shown. 

This  is  the  most  wonderful  case  in  criminology  that  I  have  ever 
encountered  in  my  profession.  You  will  notice  that  Franklin  had  a  great 
penchant  for  bribing  people  we  couldn’t  possibly  have  used  as  jurors. 
The  more  honest  the  man,  the  quicker  he  would  offer  him  something, 
try  to  “slip  him  a  little  money.” 

LOCKWOOD’S  “STRICT  INTEGRITY” 

There  was  George  Lockwood,  a  man  of  “the  strictest  integrity." 
Maybe  he  is — I  don’t  know  him.  I  wouldn’t  think  so  from  his  having 
been  a  friend  of  Franklin  so  long.  Guy  Yonkin  was  an  honest  man,  and 
John  Underwood  was  honest,  and  Smith  was  honest;  every  one  of  them 
honest  men,  every  last  one,  and  Franklin  goes  and  visits  with  their  wives, 
and  asks  them  whether  they  will  take  a  bribe  in  the  McMamara  case. 

Now,  gentlemen,  we  have  got  to  use  a  little  common  sense  in  this 
matter.  If  I  am  going  to  the  penitentiary,  it  will  be  a  great  solace  to  me 
in  the  long  days  of  my  confinement,  to  think  you  used  a  little  common 
sense  in  this  case,  and  were  not  carried  away  by  Ford.  Does  it  look  like 
a  case  of  jury  bribing?  Or  does  it  look  like  something  that  was  framed 
up?  Out  of  all  these  men  whose  names  Franklin  mentioned  he  swears 
that  he  believes  that  Yonkin,  Smith,  Underwood,  and  the  man  Lockwood, 
captain  of  the  chain  gang,  were  honest  and  incorruptable — and  he  goes 
forth  to  bribe  them.  But  Krueger  was  not  honest — something  else  was 
the  matter  with  him.  Krueger  had  been  in  trouble  with  the  District 
Attorney  and  Franklin  says  he  knew  the  District  Attorney  would  not 
take  him,  and  he  testified  that  he  told  me  so.  So  he  tried  to  force  money 
on  to  Krueger,  when  he  knew  that  Krueger  could  not  possibly  have  been 
a  juror;  and  it  took  two  men  to  get  this  fellow  whom  the  District  Attorney 
would  not  possibly  have  accepted  as  a  juror. 

Gentlemen,  am  I  dreaming?  Is  this  a  real  case  and  have  I  been 
practicing  law  for  35  years  and  built  up  some  position  in  the  community 
where  I  live  and  where  I  don’t  live,  and  now  am  I  brought  to  the  door 
of  the  penitentiary  charged  with  a  crime  like  this? 

Gentlemen,  don’t  ever  think  that  your  own  life  or  liberty  is  safe; 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


21 


that  your  own  family  is  secure;  don’t  ever  think  that  any  human  being 
is  safe,  when  under  evidence  like  this  and  circumstances  like  these,  I, 
with  some  influence,  and  some  respect,  and  some  money  am  brought 
here  and  placed  in  the  shadow  of  the  penitentiary  for  six  long  months. 
Am  I  dreaming?  And  will  I  awaken  and  find  it  all  a  horrible  nightmare, 
and  that  no  such  thing  has  happened? 

Now,  what  about  Bain?  I  think  you  gentlemen  must  know  that 
every  word  said  about  these  other  four  shows  that  I  had  no  connection 
with  this  Bain  matter.  Franklin,  himself,  said  that  I  knew  nothing  what¬ 
ever  about  three.  He  said  that  two  men  were  sent  after  Krueger,  and  that 
I  was  informed  he  could  not  possibly  qualify.  These  tales  are  brought 
up  here  against  me,  and  yet  if  I  was  not  connected  with  these  cases,  is  it 
not  pretty  safe  to  say  that  I  was  not  connected  with  the  other  two?  The 
same  brain  and  the  same  hand  were  back  of  it  all,  and  the  same  money 
was  back  of  it  all,  or  the  same  job  was  back  of  it  all,  whichever  way  you 
put  it,  and  I  take  it  there  is  not  a  sane  person  who  could  think  for  a  mo¬ 
ment  that  I  had  any  knowledge  of,  or  any  connection  with  these  four 
bribery  charges. 

I  am  still  under  indictment  for  having  offered  a  bribe  to  Robert 
Bain.  Of  all  the  silly  things  in  this  case,  the  Bain  matter  is  about  the 
silliest.  It  was  saved  by  the  prosecution  as  a  delectable  morsel  for  the 
end  of  this  trial,  because  Mrs.  Bain  was  a  woman  somewhat  advanced 
in  years,  and  Robert  Bain  was  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War.  I  do  not 
know  what  that  had  to  do  with  it,  but  Mr.  Ford  evidently  thought  it  had 
something  to  do  with  it,  and  so  it  was  brought  in  here  at  the  last,  this 
Bain  case.  Now,  let  me  just  give  you  a  brief  recital  of  some  of  the  evi¬ 
dence  in  the  Bain  case,  and  if  I  misquote  the  evidence,  any  of  the  jurors 
of  the  lawyers  are  at  liberty  to  correct  me.  I  may  sometimes  misquote 
because  I  cannot  carry  it  in  my  mind — and  I  cannot  have  much  of  a  mind 
anyway  or  I  would  not  have  sent  down  to  the  corner  of  Third  and  Main 
Streets  to  bribe  Lockwood  and  then  have  gone  down  to  see  the  job  done. 
Think  of  it!  The  court  may  sentence  me.  If  he  does,  I  hope  he  will  send 
me  to  the  right  place. 

Not  content  with  sending  these  fellows  down  to  the  corner  of  Main 
and  Third  and  then  over  to  Third  and  Los  Angeles  streets,  I  would  have 
run  down  there  on  the  street  myself !  Lord!  And  here  are  twelve  jurors 
to  pass  on  that — to  pass  on  that!  This  court  ought  to  adjourn  until 
Monday  morning  and  try  this  case  with  the  insanity  cases. 

But  to  come  back  to  Bain.  These  people  connected  with  the  District 
Attorney’s  office  discovered  that  Franklin  made  a  deposit  of  $1,000  on 


22 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


October  6th,  and  of  course,  thinking  that  Franklin  could  not  carry  around 
$1,000  in  his  pocket  very  long,  they  concluded  that  I  had  given  him  a 
check  on  October  6th.  Fine  logic.  And  on  this  theory  Franklin  swore 
to  it,  that  he  came  to  my  office  and  got  a  check  and  hustled  off  to  the 
bank  on  October  6th — which  was  the  first  day,  he  said,  that  I  ever  spoke 
to  him  about  Robert  Bain,  and  the  day  that  he  saw  Bain’s  wife  the  first 
time.  Be  says  the  first  time  I  ever  talked  to  him  about  jury  bribing  was 
October  5th,  the  day  before  he  hustled  down  to  see  Bain’s  wife.  Remem¬ 
ber  the  first  time  I  spoke  to  him  about  jury  bribing  was  October  5th,  and 
that  on  the  6th  I  gave  him  a  check  for  $1,000 — I,  a  stranger  in  Los  Angeles, 
a  check  on  a  Los  Angeles  bank  to  bribe  a  juror.  Another  case  for  the 
insanity  court.  Another  lie.  And  at  the  same  time,  according  to  the  only 
other  truthful  man  in  this  case,  besides  Franklin,  Harrington  states  that 
I  had  $10,000  in  my  pocket — at  least  I  had  it  there  the  week  before,  and 
bad  been  carrying  it  for  a  month.  Why,  I  would  not  want  to  trust  myself 
even  with  this  jury  with  that  $10,000  in  my  pocket,  not  in  Los  Angeles, 
unless  I  had  the  District  Attorney  with  me,  which  I  didn’t  have.  Ten 
thousand  dollars  in  my  pocket!  The  evidence  in  this  case  snows  that  I 
never  had  a  safety  deposit  vault  in  Los  Angeles,  and  did  not  have  the  key 
to  the  vault,  so  I  had  to  carry  it  in  my  pocket,  and  I  carried  it  there  for 
20  days  at.  least,  possibly  30,  until  I  showed  it  to  John  Harrington. 

Now,  if  I  am  smart  as  Ford  says  I  am — which  I  am  not — he  has 
got  to  fie  one  way  or  the  other,  so  he  made  it  too  smart — but  if  I  am  any¬ 
thing  near  as  smart  as  Ford  says  I  am,  and  I  had  this  ten  thousand  dollars 
in  my  pocket — suppose  it  had  been  one  of  you,  gentlemen?  Of  course, 
you  wouldn’t  do  it,  but  suppose  you  would,  then  would  you  give  him  a 
check?  Suppose  you  had  gone  to  Chicago  where  you  didn’t  know  any¬ 
body,  and  had  embarked  in  jury  bribing  and  you  had  ten  thousand  dollars 
in  your  pocket  to  give  to  two  jurors,  wTould  you  have  drawn  a  check  for 
one?  And  yet  this  miserable  mass  of  perjury  is  brought  up  here  to  this 
jury  to  take  away  the  liberty  of  a  man! 

FORD  REFUTED  BY  DATE  ON  CHECK 

And  what  more,  lo!  and  behold,  when  the  check  turns  up,  it  was  not 
given  on  October  6th,  but  on  October  4th!  Now  what  does  Ford  say? 
Ford  could  not  possibly  think  anything  was  innocent  to  save  his  life. 
He  has  been  connected  with  the  District  Attorney’s  office  so  long  that  I 
don’t  believe  he  could  think  his  own  mother  was  honest.  He  says  I  prob¬ 
ably  misdated  that  check  purposely.  Probably  misdated  it  purposely! 
Where  is  the  evidence?  Does  it  come  out  of  thin  air,  conjured  by  the 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


23 


malice  of  his  brain?  Where  is  the  evidence?  Does  Ford  think  you  are 
children?  Does  he  think  in  some  mysterious  way  he  has  drawn  together 
here  from  the  county  twelve  children  and  placed  them  in  charge  of  my 
liberty?  He  must.  Misdated  it  purposely!  Why  should  I  have  given 
any  check  at  all?  If  I  had  taken  thought  to  misdate  it  I  would  have  given 
him  cash,  wouldn’t  I?  Why,  any  child  knows  better.  Ah,  he  says,  you 
may  have  misdated  it  by  accident.  Yes,  I  may.  A  great  many  things 
may  be  in  this  world.  Ford  might  tell  the  truth  by  accident.  He  might. 
But  I  wouldn’t  convict  him  of  telling  the  truth  on  any  evidence  so  uncer¬ 
tain  as  that. 

What  else  does  Franklin  do?  He  goes  to  the  bank  and  he  draws 
$500.  The  bank  cashier  swears  positively  that  he  gave  the  money  to  him 
in  fifties  and  hundreds.  The  bank  cashier  swore  that  the  gave  him  fifty 
and  hundred  dollar  bills,  and  yet,  Franklin  gave  only  twenty  dollar  bills 
to  the  Bains — every  dollar  he  left  there  was  in  twenties.  Now,  gentlemen, 
this  does  not  rest  on  the  bank  cashier’s  testimony  alone.  There  comes 
out  of  their  own  mouths  a  bit  of  corroboration,  which  shows  perfectly 
that  the  bank  cashier  was  right.  Mr.  Franklin  puts  $500  in  his  pocket 
and  rushes  off  to  see — not  Mrs.  Bain — she  was  out,  so  he  runs  over  to  see 
one  of  the  neighbor’s  wives  and  leaves  his  card.  Here  is  a  detective  for 
your  life!  Why,  he  has  got  Sherlock  Holmes  faded.  He  has  got  Bums 
beaten  forty  ways.  He  is  going  to  bribe  a  juror,  and  he  goes  over  and 
sees  this  juror’s  neighbor’s  wife,  and  asks  her  to  tell  Bain  to  call  him  up 
at  his  office.  No  wonder  he  used  Main  Street  for  his  field  of  operation. 
And  you,  gentlemen,  are  expected  to  stand  for  it.  No,  I  am  to  stand  for  it. 
All  you  do  is  to  return  the  verdict;  I  stand  for  it.  Ford  tells  you  that 
you  do  not  have  to  do  anything  but  return  a  verdict.  Now,  what  do  you 
suppose  he  said  that  for?  Did  he  want  to  take  from  the  minds  of  this 
jury  the  responsibility  involved  in  their  verdict?  Gentlemen,  I  don’t 
ask  for  any  mercy  at  your  hands.  I  want  a  fair  deal.  I  am  going  to  get 
it.  But  no  man  has  a  right  to  take  from  any  jurors  the  responsibility 
that  they  bear  to  the  case  they  are  judging,  and  tell  them  that  they  are 
to  hold  a  man’s  life  in  their  keeping  without  thought.  If  you  think  I 
deserve  conviction,  then  convict  me,  but  do  it  with  your  own  eyes  open 
and  your  minds  clear. 

Now,  here  is  a  fellow  that  goes  down  to  bribe  Bain,  and  he  doesn’t 
talk  with  Mr.  Bain,  but  goes  to  a  neighbor.  And  later  he  goes  back  to 
the  house  and  does  not  find  Bob  at  home,  so  he  talks  with  Bob’s  wife. 
If  Bob’s  wife  had  not  been  at  home,  he  would  have  talked  with  the  dog. 
If  the  dog  had  not  been  there,  he  would  have  talked  with  the  cat.  He 


24 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


was  oat  after  jurors,  it  is  a  wonder  he  didn’t  send  a  letter.  So  he  goes  tuck 
to  Mrs.  Bain.  Mrs.  Bain  asked  him  to  subscribe  for  the  Examiner  so  she 
could  get  a  premium,  and  Franklin  subscribed.  He  wrote  his  name,  and 
Mrs.  Bain  said,  “Is  that  all?”  Franklin  said,  ‘  ‘No,  you  want  the  money, 
don’t  you?”  And  then  he  said,  “Can  you  change  a  fifty  or  a  hundred?” 
That  is  what  Mrs.  Bain  said,  and  it  is  no  doubt  true.  Franklin  said  to 
her,  “Can  you  change  a  fifty  or  can  you  change  a  hundred?” — one  or  the 
other.  He  had  come  right  straight  from  the  bank  where  the  teller  swears 
he  gave  him  five  hundred  dollars  in  one  hundreds  and  fifties,  and  Mrs. 
Bain  said  that  he  asked  her  to  change  a  fifty  or  a  hundred.  So  if  the  bank 
teller  needs  any  corroboration,  here  it  comes  from  the  mouth  of  Mrs. 
Bain,  that  he  did  get  fifties  and  hundreds.  If  he  had  gotten  one  twenty 
dollar  bill  in  the  bunch,  wouldn’t  he  have  asked  her  to  change  a  twenty? 
He  finally  pulled  out  his  wallet  and  managed  to  find  some  small  change, 
Mrs.  Bain  says.  And  he  went  back  that  night  and  saw  Robert  Bain  and 
gave  him  $400,  every  penny  in  twenty  dollar  bills. 

Now,  gentlemen,  there  it  is.  A  man  is  presumed  to  be  honest  and 
not  a  criminal,  and  a  jury  presumed  to  be  sensible  and  fair,  and  to  under¬ 
stand  the  responsibility  involved  in  passing  on  the  liberty  of  a  fellowman. 
Now  tell  me,  did  he  get  these  twenties  from  me  or  through  any  check  of 
mine?  The  bank  teller  says  no,  and  Mrs.  Bain  says  no.  Where  did  he 
get  these  twenties?  I  cannot  tell.  That  money  did  not  come  from  the 
bank  on  my  check,  and  there  is  no  way  on  earth  to  figure  that  it  did,  and 
if  I  didn’t  furnish  the  money,  where  did  it  come  from?  Whose  hand 
working  out  here  in  the  darkness,  unknown  to  me  and  unknown  to  the 
other  attorneys — whose  hand  was  it  that  stretched  out  in  the  night  and  was 
working  my  ruin?  Of  all  the  cases  upon  which  a  grand  jury  ever  acted, 
the  Bain  case  is  the  silliest.  Gentlemen,  there  isn’t  a  chance  in  ten  thous¬ 
and  that  I  could  have  been  guilty  in  the  Bain  case.  Not  a  chance  in  ten 
thousand.  Here  comes  Robert  Bain  on  the  witness  stand,  he  has  immunity, 
and  he  will  assume  that  he  tells  the  truth.  I  will  tell  you  why  I  took  him 
on  the  jury: 

AGE  BRINGS  KINDLIER  JUDGMENTS 

Bain  told  us  he  had  belonged  to  the  first  Labor  Union  ever  organized 
in  Los  Angeles.  His  hair  was  white,  and  somehow,  as  we  get  along  in 
years,  we  think  more  of  the  few  years  that  are  left  than  do  the  young. 
So,  especially  in  a  murder  case,  when  I  find  a  man  with  white  hair,  I  know 
he  will  be  as  tender  and  kind  and  careful  of  his  brother’s  life  as  he  is  of  his 
own.  We  know  as  we  grow  in  age  and  experience — we  understand  more 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


25 


and  more  what  great  influence  circumstances  have  upon  our  lives,  and  how 
near  alike  are  all  men  after  all  is  said  and  done;  and  we  grow  kindlier  in 
our  judgments,  more  charitable  to  our  fellow  man  than  we  were  when 
filled  with  hot  blood  and  the  intemperate  passions  of  youth.  So  Bain 
was  taken  on  the  jury.  Franklin  said  he  was  a  good  man  for  the  jury. 

Franklin  was  consulted  in  the  case  of  every  juror,  as  Davis  and  I 
testified,  and  as  naturally  would  be  the  case.  And  what  did  Bain  tell 
Franklin?  You  remember  the  story.  He  says  that  when  Franklin  gave 
him  the  money,  he  told  Franklin  that  if  he  found  the  evidence  against 
McNamara  convincing,  he  would  render  a  verdict  of  guilty,  didn’t  he? 
He  told  Franklin  that  if  the  evidence  convinced  him  he  would  vote  guilty. 
He  said  he  would  not  have  voted  guilty  anyhow  unless  the  evidence  was 
convincing.  Now,  here  is  the  man  himself  to  whom  they  have  given 
immunity,  and  who  is  here  in  some  mysterious  way  to  testify  against  me, 
and  he  says  that  he  told  Franklin  then  that  if  the  evidence  was  convincing 
he  would  find  my  client  guilty,  and  yet  Franklin  thrust  $400  onto  him, 
when  he  swears  he  got  from  me  and  told  me  about  it.  Gentlemen,  do  you 
believe  it?  Isn’t  it  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of?  Do  you  believe 
it?  Bribe  this  man  with  $400  when  he  was  not  bribed  at  all,  when  he 
told  Franklin  that  if  the  evidence  was  convincing  he  would  find  my  client 
guilty! 

And  that  is  not  all,  after  he  got  into  the  jury  room  and  stayed  there 
with  his  fellows  day  after  day — of  course,  you  know  the  jury  is  instructed 
that  they  must  not  talk  with  their  fellows  about  the  case,  must  not  form 
any  opinion — of  course,  you  know  they  do  not.  I  know  they  do.  I 
have  lived  in  courts  for  35  years.  Well,  Bain  told  a  juror  in  that  jury 

room  that  if  he  stayed  on  the  jury  the  - - - would  get 

what  was  coming  to  them;  that  is  the  evidence  of  witness  Webb.  Fred¬ 
ericks  spent  longer  in  cross  examining  Webb  than  he  did  any  other  witness 
but  could  not  stir  him.  Webb’s  evidence  remained  unshaken. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  simply  insanity  to  talk  about  the  Bain  case.  First 
the  check  was  given  before  the  bribery  was  ever  spoken  of.  Second, 
Franklin  got  no  money  from  that  check  to  give  to  Bain.  Third,  Franklin 
went  to  the  neighbor’s  wife,  and  to  Bain’s  wife  and  they  called  at  his 
office.  Fourth,  Bain  was  not  bribed  at  all,  and  fifth,  Bain  says  himself 
that  he  would  have  found  my  client  guilty  after  he  got  in  the  jury  room. 
And  yet,  after  all  this,  I  am  guilty  of  bribing  Bain! 

I  have  told  you  my  story.  I  have  told  you  of  all  these  matters  as 
simply  and  as  plainly  as  I  could.  Ford  said  that  I  lied,  that  I  quibbled, 
that  I  hesitated.  Now,  I  do  not  blame  anybody  for  making  any  argument 


1 


26 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


that  is  fair  and  useful  to  his  end.  I  will  just  touch  on  the  matter  for  a 
moment,  and  you  do  the  rest.  Ford  went  on  the  stand.  Who  quibbled 
the  most,  he  or  I?  Do  you  remember?  Why,  he  is  so  shifty  that  he  could 
not  admit  to  this  jury  that  he  knew  Oscar  Lawler  was  the  prosecutor 
specially  retained  by  the  United  States  Government.  He  quibbled  and 
bed  and  hedged  upon  the  simplest  question  until  this  Court  said,  “The 
Court  will  take  judicial  notice  of  that  fact.”  Ford  tells  you  that  I  quib¬ 
bled  and  hesitated  and  lied  and  had  my  attorneys  make  objections.  He 
has  a  right  to  argue  that  I  lied,  because  I  contradicted  Franklin,  and  I 
would  not  question  his  right  to  argue  that  for  a  minute,  but  did  I  quibble 
or  hesitate?  He  asked  me  questions  for  four  long  days,  gentlemen.  Did 
they  bother  me?  Did  I  hesitate?  Did  I  quibble?  I  took  pains  to  under¬ 
stand  his  questions.  I  was  not  going  to  let  him  trick  me  into  the  peni¬ 
tentiary  by  not  understanding  the  devious  workings  of  his  devious  head. 
I  was  going  to  say  “mind,”  but  I  changed  it  for  “head.”  I  threw  myself 
open  to  him  and  there  was  not  a  question  that  I  did  not  answer  the  best 
I  could.  Perhaps  every  answer  I  made  was  not  correct,  but  I  thought  it 
was.  Now,  I  will  take  one  of  you  men — and  I  am  not  as  smart  as  Ford, 
as  I  can  prove  by  Ford — I  can  take  any  one  of  you  men  and  cross  examine 
you  four  days  and  I  will  catch  you  somewhere,  I  think.  But  anyhow  I 
threw  myself  open  and  they  questioned  me  to  their  heart’s  content.  I 
leave  it  to  you  whether  my  answers  were  frank  and  honest  and  fair  and 
prompt  or  whether  they  were  not. 

NINE  DETECTIVES  AND  NINE  INFORMERS 

Now,  gentlemen,  having  cleared  away  these  other  matters,  let  us  see 
what  there  is  in  the  Lockwood  case.  Lockwood!  I  am  to  go  to  the  peni¬ 
tentiary  because  Franklin  gave  White  $4,000  at  the  comer  of  Main  and 
Third  streets  to  be  held  for  Lockwood.  White  transferred  it  on  the  comer 
of  Los  Angeles  and  Third  about  nine  o’clock  in  the  morning  of  the  28th 
day  of  November.  These  other  things  we  have  considered  were  thrown 
in  here  to  prove  it,  so  as  to  help  out  in  some  way  the  two  witnesses  whom 
Mr.  Rogers  has  so  well  pointed  out  as  the  only  witnesses  against  me.  They 
thought  that  by  giving  you  quantity  you  might  forget  the  quality  of  their 
testimony. 

Now,  they  have  marshalled  here  to  condemn  me  nine  detectives 
and  nine  informers;  and  nobody’s  liberty  in  any  English-speaking  country 
was  ever  taken  away  on  evidence  like  that.  These  men  clothed  with 
the  power  of  the  law,  with  the  opportunity  to  reach  out  their  processes 
through  the  length  and  the  breadth  of  the  land,  have  said  to  John  Har- 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


27 


rington,  “Unless  you  bear  testimony  against  Darrow  you  must  go  to  the 
penitentiary  yourself.”  These  men  hold  Franklin  by  the  throat  and  tell 
him  that  he  will  go  to  the  penitentiary  unless  he  testifies.  He  needn’t 
testify  against  any  Los  Angeles  man;  it  is  only  Darrow  they  want.  These 
men  reach  out  to  Cooney,  to  Fitzpatrick,  to  Behm,  to  Bain,  to  Mrs.  Bain, 
to  anybody  whom  they  can  intimidate  and  frighten,  to  whom  the  doors 
of  the  penitentiary  look  grimmer  and  harder  than  they  do  to  me. 

Why,  gentlemen,  I  don’t  want  to  go,  but  when  Harrington  told  me, 
as  he  admits  he  did,  that  all  would  be  forgiven  if  I  told  him  where  Schmidt 
or  Caplan  was — do  you  suppose  I  would  purchase  my  life  at  the  expense 
of  the  life  of  my  fellowman,  no  matter  if  that  fellowman  was  a  criminal? 
I  am  not  his  judge.  Only  the  infinite  God  can  judge  the  human  heart,  and 
I  never  tried  to  judge.  I  never  would  do  it,  and  hope  I  never  shall,  and 
when  Harrington  told  me  that  if  I  would  furnish  evidence  against  Sam 
Gompers  in  their  wild  crusade  to  destroy  the  trades  unions,  so  that  men 
and  women  might  toil  longer  for  less  reward,  do  you  suppose  I  thought 
or  hesitated  or  waited  to  draw  my  breath  for  a  single  moment?  I  had 
no  information  to  give,  but  I  bad  as  much  as  Franklin  or  Harrington  had. 
I  could  have  told  them  any  story  that  I  saw  fit.  I  could  have  purchased 
my  liberty  at  the  price  of  my  honor,  and  then  Ford  would  have  said  that 
I  was  a  noble  man,  and  that  the  fellow  I  was  betraying  was  a  Judas  Iscariot. 
Lord!  what  a  mind  he  has,  and  what  a  heart  he  has,  and  what  a  conscience 
he  has!  Would  a  man  hesitate?  No,  and  because  I  did  not  I  am  pilloried 
here  before  this  jury  and  before  the  world  as  a  criminal. 

Gentlemen,  there  is  one  thing  I  can  say  in  favor  of  Franklin;  by  com¬ 
parison,  Harrington  has  made  a  gentleman  out  of  him.  Anybody  is  a 
gentleman  compared  with  Harrington.  Perhaps  you  think  I  am  especially 
bitter  against  Harrington,  but  I  don’t  believe  in  bitterness — as  some  of 
you  may  have  suspicioned  this  afternoon.  I  have  always  tried  to  curb  it, 
all  my  life.  I  don’t  blame  Harrington,  and  I  don’t  blame  Ford.  Nobody 
is  responsible  for  the  shape  of  his  brain;  it  conforms  to  the  skull,  which  is 
made  of  bone,  and  no  one  can  help  the  shape  of  his  head.  You  may  not 
believe  it,  but  there  is  not  a  man  on  this  jury  that  cannot  go  back  through 
the  years  and  see  how  the  smallest  circumstances  have  affected  the  whole 
course  of  his  life,  circumstances  entirely  beyond  him  and  outside  his  con¬ 
trol.  And  a  circumstance  that  might  affect  you  might  not  affect  me. 
Some  have  a  large  brain,  some  have  a  small  one,  some  have  a  symmetrical 
brain,  and  some  an  unsymmetrical  brain.  We  are  no  more  responsible 
for  the  shape  of  our  brains  than  we  are  for  the  shape  of  our  faces.  I  know 
this  as  a  matter  of  philosophy.  I  know  Harrington  is  not  to  blame  for 


28 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


being  a  coward.  I  know  God  made  him  a  coward,  and  he  cannot  help 
it,  and  I  have  spoken  of  him  with  this  view  in  my  mind  all  the  way  along. 

I  would  not  harm  him.  Talk  to  this  jury  about  my  moral  responsibility 
for  crime!  I  defy  any  living  man  to  say  where,  either  by  speech  or  word 
of  pen  I  have  advised  anything  cruel  in  my  life. 

I  would  have  walked  from  Chicago  across  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
over  the  long  dreary  desert  to  lay  my  hand  upon  the  shoulder  of  J.  B. 
McNamara  and  tell  him  not  to  place  dynamite  in  the  Times  building. 
All  my  life  I  have  counselled  gentleness,  kindness  and  forgiveness  to  every 
human  being,  and,  gentlemen,  at  the  same  time,  even  speaking  for  my  own 
liberty,  I  do  not  retreat  one  inch  or  one  iota  from  what  I  really  believe 
as  to  this.  You  were  told  about  the  horrors  of  the  Times  explosion  by 
Mr.  Ford.  Why?  So  that  some  of  the  horrors  of  that  terrible  accident 
might,  be  reflected  upon  me  to  get  me  into  the  penitentiary. 

Now,  gentlemen,  let  me  tell  you  honestly  what  I  think  about  that. 
It  hasn’t  anything  to  do  with  this  case,  excepting  as  they  dragged  it  in 
here  to  prejudice  the  minds  of  this  jury  and  to  argue  that  this  man  should 
not  have  been  defended  by  me.  Do  you  suppose  I  am  going  to  judge 
J.  B.  McNamara?  I  know  him.  Do  you  know  anything  about  criminals? 
Did  you  ever  see  a  man  who  committed  a  crime?  I  take  back  nothing 
of  what  I  have  ever  said  or  written  or  known  upon  that  subject.  Men 
who  are  called  criminals  are  like  you  and  like  me,  and  like  all  other  men. 
They  may  do  this  thing  wrong  and  they  may  do  ten  thousand  things  right. 
I  never  saw  a  case  where  a  wife  or  a  mother  or  a  father  or  a  brother  or  a 
Bister  or  a  husband  or  a  friend  didn’t  plead  for  the  “criminal”  that  he  or 
she  knew,  and  point  out  to  the  Governor  and  those  charged  with  mercy 
ten  thousand  good  things  in  his  life  and  in  his  character  that  would  com¬ 
mend  him  to  mercy,  while  his  enemies  were  telling  only  the  wrongs  he  had 
done.  I  know  that  the  same  feelings  lurk  in  the  brain  and  heart  of  every 
man.  I  am  not  responsible  for  J.  B.  McNamara’s  brain;  I  am  not  respon¬ 
sible  for  his  devotion  to  a  cause,  even  though  it  carries  him  too  far. 

Let  me  tell  you  something,  gentlemen,  which  I  know  District  Attorney 
Fredericks  will  use  in  his  argument  against  me,  and  which  I  have  no  reason 
to  feel  will  meet  with  favor  in  the  minds  of  you  twelve  men,  but  it  is  what 
I  believe.  I  will  just  take  a  chance. 

SOCIAL  CRIMES— THEIR  CAUSE  AND  REMEDY 

Did  you  ever  think  of  the  other  side  of  this  question?  Lincoln 
Steffens  was  right  in  saying  that  this  was  a  social  crime.  That  does  not 
mean  that  it  should  have  been  committed,  but  it  means  this,  that  it  grew 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


29 


out  of  a  condition  of  society  for  which  McNamara  was  in  no  wise  respon¬ 
sible.  There  was  a  fierce  conflict  in  this  city,  exciting  the  minds  of  thous¬ 
ands  of  people,  some  poor,  some  weak,  some  irresponsible,  some  doing 
wrong  on  the  side  of  the  powerful  as  well  as  upon  the  side  of  the  poor. 
It  inflamed  their  minds — and  this  thing  happened.  Let  me  tell  you,  gen¬ 
tlemen,  and  I  will  tell  you  the  truth,  you  may  hang  these  men  to  the 
highest  tree,  you  may  hang  everybody  suspected,  you  may  send  me  to  the 
penitentiary  if  you  will,  you  may  convict  the  fifty-four  men  indicted  in 
Indianapolis;  but  until  you  go  down  to  fundamental  causes,  these  things 
will  happen  over  and  over  again.  They  will  come  as  the  earthquake 
comes.  They  will  come  as  the  hurricane  that  uproots  the  trees.  They 
will  come  as  the  lightning  comes  to  destroy  the  poisonous  miasmas  that  fill 
the  air.  We  as  a  people  are  responsible  for  these  conditions,  and  we 
must  look  results  squarely  in  the  face. 

And  I  want  to  say  to  you  another  thing  in  justice  to  that  young  man 
who  was  my  client,  and  whom  I  risked  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  reputa¬ 
tion  to  save.  He  had  nothing  on  earth  to  gain;  his  act  was  not  inspired 
by  love  of  money;  he  couldn’t  even  get  fame,  for  if  he  had  succeeded  he 
could  never  have  told  any  human  being  as  long  as  he  lived.  He  had  noth¬ 
ing  to  gain.  He  believed  in  a  cause,  and  he  risked  his  life  in  that  cause. 
Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  it  makes  no  difference  with  the  motives  of 
the  man.  I  would  not  have  done  it.  You  would  not  have  done  it,  but 
judged  in  the  light  of  his  motives,  which  is  the  only  way  that  man  can  be 
judged— and  for  that  reason  only  the  infinite  God  can  judge  a  human 
being — judged  in  the  light  of  his  motives  I  cannot  condemn  the  man,  and 
I  will  not. 

THE  KINSHIP  OF  ALL  MEN 

I  want  to  say  more,  when  you  know  the  man,  no  matter  whom — I 
have  known  men  charged  with  crime  in  all  walks  of  life,  burglars,  bankers, 
murderers — when  you  come  to  touch  them  and  meet  them  and  know  them, 
you  feel  the  kinship  between  them  and  you.  You  feel  that  they  are  human; 
they  love  their  mothers,  their  wives,  their  children;  they  love  their  fellow 
man.  Why  they  did  this  thing  or  that  thing  remains  the  dark  mystery 
of  a  clouded  mind,  which  all  the  science  of  all  the  world  has  never  yet  been 
wise  enough  to  solve.  But  this  act  of  McNamara  has  again  been  brought 
before  this  jury  that  it  may  work  upon  your  passions  against  me — for 
nothing  else.  None  of  the  perpetrators  of  this  deed  was  ever  morally 
guilty  of  murder.  Never.  No  one  knows  it  better  than  the  people  who 
were  prosecuting  them.  Sixteen  sticks  of  dynamite  were  placed  under  a 


30 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


corner  of  the  Times  building  to  damage  the  building,  but  not  to  destroy 
life,  to  intimidate,  to  injure  property,  and  for  no  other  reason.  It  was 
placed  there  wrongfully,  criminally,  if  you  will,  but  with  no  thought  of 
harming  human  life.  The  explosion  itself  scarcely  stopped  the  printing 
presses.  Unfortunately,  there  was  an  accumulation  of  gas  and  other 
inflammable  substances  in  the  building  which  ignited,  and  the  fire  resulting 
destroyed  these  human  lives. 

Gentlemen,  do  you  think  my  heart  is  less  kind  than  Ford’s?  Do  you 
think  he  would  care  more  than  I  for  the  suffering  of  his  fellowmen?  Do 
you  think  for  a  moment  that  I  did  not  feel  sorry  at  the  destruction  of  those 
lives,  and  for  the  wives  and  the  children  and  the  friends  that  were  left 
behind?  Wouldn’t  I  feel  it  as  much  as  he?  And  yet,  gentlemen,  this 
Times  matter  is  paraded  before  this  jury,  in  the  hope  that  in  some  way  it 
may  awaken  a  prejudice  in  your  hearts  against  me  Gentlemen,  I  wish  in 
no  way  to  modify  anything  I  have  ever  said  or  thought  upon  this  subject. 
There  never  was  a  man  charged  with  crime  that  I  was  not  sorry  for;  sorry 
for  him  and  sorry  for  his  crime;  that  I  could  not  imagine  the  motives 
that  moved  his  poor  weak  brain;  and  I  tell  you  today  as  Mr.  Steffens  told 
you  from  the  witness  stand,  there  will  come  a  time  when  crime  will  dis¬ 
appear,  but  that  time  will  never  come  or  be  hastened  by  the  building  of 
jails  and  penitentiaries  and  scaffolds.  It  will  only  come  by  changing  the 
conditions  of  life  under  which  men  live  and  suffer  and  die. 

At  5  o’clock  court  adjourned  for  the  day. 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


31 


On  the  following  morning,  August  15th,  Mr.  |Darrow  resumed  his 
argument  to  the  jury: 


GENTLEMEN  of  the  jury,  you  cannot  have  listened  here  for  three 
months  and  not  have  understood  this  case.  No  intelligent  person 
could,  and  I  know  you  do  understand  it.  For  the  balance  of  my  argument 
I  shall  confine  my  talk  almost  entirely  to  the  main  charge  brought  against 
me,  and  say  no  more  about  these  outside  issues,  which  mean  nothing  ex¬ 
cept  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  State,  cruel,  unjust  and  unlawful,  to  pre¬ 
judice  you  against  me.  The  question  which  you  are  to  decide  here  is  this: 
Did  I  give  Franklin  four  thousand  dollars  on  the  morning  of  the  28th  of 
November  to  seek  to  bribe  Lockwood?  That  is  all  there  is  to  it.  Now  is 
Franklin’s  story  true  or  is  it  a  lie?  If  I  am  to  be  convicted  it  must  be  upon 
the  story  which  Franklin  tells  and  the  evidence  which  he  presents.  It 
must  be  upon  the  story  that  on  Monday  morning,  the  28th,  he  met  me  in 
my  office,  that  I  called  up  Job  Harriman,  who  came  there,  and  handed  me 
the  four  thousnd  dollars,  which  I  then  gave  to  Franklin,  and  told  him  to 
go  down  on  the  streets  and  bribe  a  juror.  That  is  all  there  is  of  it.  Now, 
what  is  the  evidence  on  that?  Job  Harriman  comes  on  the  witness  stand 
and  swears  there  is  not  a  single  word  of  truth  in  it.  Are  you  going  to  say 
that  he  is  a  perjurer?  Mr.  Ford  says  that  he  believes  it.  But  where  in 
this  record  is  there  any  evidence,  or  any  indication  that  Job  Harriman 
committed  perjury  and  was  guilty  of  bribery? 

Next,  Frank  Wolfe  testifies  that  I  came  down  with  him  on  the  street 
car  that  morning,  that  he  went  with  me  to  my  office,  that  we  discussed 
the  political  campaign  and  other  matters,  until  I  was  called  up  on  the  phone 
and  said  that  I  was  going  to  Job  Harriman’s  political  headquarters,  and 
that  I  went  out  with  him.  Who  is  Frank  Wolfe?  A  man  who  was  manag¬ 
ing  editor  of  the  Herald  for  years.  A  man  who  has  held  important  news¬ 
paper  positions  for  twenty  years,  and  who  is  now  one  of  the  editors  of  the 


32 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


Municipal  paper  in  this  city — a  man  upon  whose  countenance  truth  is 
stamped  as  plainly  as  upon  any  man  who  lives.  Is  he  a  liar?  A  perjurer? 
For  what?  He  is  not  charged  with  bribery,  and  he  is  not  interested 
in  this  case.  Are  you  likely  to  throw  away  the  evidence  of  Frank  Wolfe, 
and  replace  it  with  the  lies  of  Franklin?  I  will  guarantee,  gentlemen, 
that  your  observation  would  lead  you  to  trust  me  before  you  would  trust 
Franklin,  if  my  word  stood  alone.  I  believe  you  would  take  my  word  if 
it  stood  alone  against  every  one  of  these  informers  and  crooks  and  immunity 
hunters. 

Maybe,  we  are  all  liars,  gentlemen,  perhaps  everybody  in  this  case 
lied  but  Franklin,  as  Ford  said.  Perhaps  Wolfe  lied.  Perhaps  with  their 
two  grand  juries  and  their  Bums  outfit  and  their  Erectors’  Association 
the  have  raked  and  scraped  this  fair  county  and  this  fair  city;  perhaps 
they  have  gone  out  into  the  broad  world  from  here  to  New  York  and  found 
only  two  honest  men,  Franklin  and  Harrington,  and  all  the  rest  of  us  are 
liars,  but  I  don’t  think  you  will  believe  it. 

Franklin,  you  remember,  first  tried  to  fasten  his  crime  upon  Lock- 
wood.  Then  within  a  week  we  find  him  telling  Joe  Musgrave  that  he 
would  “slip  it  to  someone  else.”  He  might  not  have  thought  then  whom 
but  he  found  out  later — when  Ford  told  him  “We  want  Darrow.  ’’Next, 
within  another  week,  Franklin  had  a  hearing  before  a  Justice  of  the 
Peace,  and  he  tells  four  newspaper  men,  White,  Bernard,  Willard  and 
Jones,  all  of  whom  appeared  here;  he  tells  them  not  simply  that  Lock- 
wood  lied  when  he  said  my  name  was  mentioned,  but  that  I  was  an  inno' 
cent  man,  and  that  he  would  not  stand  still  and  keep  his  lips  sealed  and 
see  an  innocent  man  accused.  Ford  says  that  Franklin  admits  these 
statements.  He  did  not.  Ford  knows  he  did  not.  Franklin  said  on 
the  stand  here  he  never  made  those  statements.  Why  did  Ford  misquote 
the  evidence?  Lord,  how  short  the  memory  of  a  bloodhound  is  when  he 
scents  human  blood! 

FRANKLIN’S  TESTIMONY  REFUTED 

Let  me  call  your  attention  to  the  testimony.  There  is  my  friend 
Willard  who  came  to  the  witness  stand.  He  represents  the  Associated 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


33 


Press.  Mr.  Ford  asked  him,  “Did  you  write  what  Franklin  told  you  in 
your  story?”  Willard  answered,  “I  think  I  did.”  “Are  you  sure?” 
“I  think  so,  but  it  was  a  long  time  ago.”  Then  Ford  said,  “You  go  back 
and  find  your  story,  and  I  will  recall  you  for  cross-examination” — and  he 
never  recalled  him;  never. 

And  here  was  Jones,  who  represents  the  Tribune.  Did  Franklin 
admit  that  he  told  Jones  what  Jones  testified  to?  He  denied  it,  and  he 
lied  about  it.  And  what  did  Ford  say?  Why,  you  remember  Harry 
Jones  on  the  stand.  Ford  asked  him,  “Did  you  publish  that  statement 
in  your  paper?”  “I  think  so,  I  think  I  wrote  it,  but  it  might  have  been 
cut  out;  I  don’t  know  whether  it  was  published.”  Ford  asks,  “Are  you 
sure?”  “Yes.”  “Bring  your  paper  into  Court,  and  let’s  see.”  And 
Jones  came  in  with  his  report  and  read  it  to  this  Jury,  after  Franklin  had 
sworn  that  he  had  never  said  such  a  thing  in  the  world.  He  told  it  to 
White,  he  told  it  to  Bernard,  both  newspaper  men.  He  told  it  to  Nicholson 
who  sat  here  day  after  day  writing  for  the  Examiner.  Five  of  them, 
everyone  and  everyone  are  liars. 

What  next?  This  is  a  talkative  man,  this  man  Franklin,  especially 
when  you  get  him  around  the  Waldorf  saloon.  He  met  Frank  Dominguez 
and  George  Drain  along  in  the  latter  part  of  December  or  the  first  of  Jan¬ 
uary,  and  he  told  them  unqualifiedly  and  without  equivocation  that  I 
never  gave  him  a  dishonest  dollar  in  my  life;  and  then  he  came  on  the  wit¬ 
ness  stand  and  denied  it,  saying  that  he  had  no  such  conversation.  Again 
on  the  third  day  of  February,  two  weeks  after  he  had  gone  before  the  Grand 
Jury,  and  more  than  a  week  after  he  had  made  this  statement  to  Oscar 
Lawler,  he  again  met  Frank  Dominguez,  and  he  reiterated  the  statement 
which  he  made  after  this  confession  that  I  had  given  him  no  money  for 
bribery.  And  he  met  his  friend  George  Hood,  the  lodge  member  who 
asked  him,  “Why  didn’t  you  take  that  money  and  put  it  in  your  pocket?” 
and  “Did  Darrow  give  it  to  you?”  He  told  Hood  that  Darrow  did  not 
give  it  to  him,  and  that  the  reason  he  did  not  put  it  in  his  pocket  was 
because  the  man  who  gave  it  to  him  was  watching  him  when  he  passed  it, 
and  that  man  was  a  stranger  to  him,  and  did  not  live  in  this  city.  That 


34 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


is  the  reason  he  did  not  steal  the  four  thousand  dollars;  that  is  the  way  he 
excused  himself  to  his  friend  Hood  for  not  being  a  thief.  That  is  an  excuse 
that  men  often  make,  that  something  is  nailed  down  and  they  cannot  steal 
it.  That  prevents  a  lot  of  stealing  in  this  world. 

Then  along  about  the  12th  of  January,  Franklin  went  to  Attorney 
Tom  Johnston,  whom  he  supposed  was  close  to  the  District  Attorney. 
What  did  he  say  to  Johnston? 

Gentlemen,  I  do  not  know  whether  you  have  had  much  to  do  with 
lawyers  or  not.  You  probably  have  more  money  if  you  have  not;  I  am 
not  saying  anything  about  that;  but  if  any  of  you  get  into  trouble,  you 
generally  tell  your  lawyer  the  truth.  And  good  men  do  get  into  trouble 
now  and  then,  and  bad  men  stay  out  of  trouble  now  and  then.  You  can’t 
tell  whether  a  man  is  good  or  bad  because  he  gets  into  trouble  or  stays 
out.  But  if  you  do  get  into  trouble,  you  tell  your  lawyer  the  truth,  just 
as  you  tell  your  doctor  the  truth. 

What  did  Franklin  tell  Johnston  of  the  12th  day  of  January?  He 
told  him  that  I  had  never  given  him  a  cent  of  money  for  bribery,  never. 
He  told  him  that  the  bribe  money  was  given  to  him  by  someone  else,  and  he 
told  him  that  I  never  knew  anything  about  it.  Now  are  you  going  to 
convict  me  on  Franklin’s  word,  when  that  is  the  statement  which  he  made 
to  his  lawyer  in  confidence?  It  is  unthinkable.  Johnston  may  be  a  liar 
— may  be,  but  you  don’t  believe  it.  And  Johnston  goes  to  Mr.  Ford  and 
he  comes  back  to  Franklin  and  reports:  “That  won’t  do,  nothing  will  do 
but  to  make  a  statement  against  Darrow.”  And  what  does  Franklin 
reply?  He  says  to  Johnston,  “If  I  made  a  statement  against  Darrow  I 
would  be  a  God  damn  liar.”  Now,  Franklin  said  in  January  that  if  he 
made  a  statement  against  me  he  would  be  a  blankety  blank  liar.  In  May 
he  makes  that  statement.  What  is  he?  What  is  he?  I  will  not  charac¬ 
terize  him,  he  has  characterized  himself,  and  I  hope  the  wonderful  District 
Attorney’s  office  got  its  money’s  worth  when  it  bribed  him  with  liberty 
to  make  his  statement  against  me.  Then  Franklin  meets  Davis  and  me, 
Davis  having  called  me  to  his  office  on  the  14th,  two  days  later,  and  ac¬ 
cording  to  Davis  and  me,  Franklin  told  us  then  together  that  Johnston  had 


IN  ms  OWN  DEFENSE 


S5 


come  to  him,  reporting  that  he  had  been  to  the  District  Attorney’s  office 
and  telling  him  if  he  would  turn  up  evidence  against  me  he  need  not  say 
a  word  about  anybody  in  Los  Angeles,  that  I  was  the  one  they  were  after; 
and  Franklin  replied,  “I  could  not  do  it,  I  have  no  evidence  against  you, 
I  could  not  do  it,”  Maybe  Davis  and  I  are  liars.  Ford  says  I  have  cor¬ 
rupted  Davis.  Maybe  I  have.  Maybe  I  have  corrupted  everybody  I 
have  met,  excepting  Ford.  But  it  takes  some  evidence  to  show  that, 
doesn’t  it?  Davis,  a  man  of  standing  amd  high  character  in  the  city 
where  he  has  lived  and  practiced  law.  He  is  a  liar,  and  Franklin  is  telling 
the  truth! 

Suppose  we  took  a  change  of  venue  and  tried  this  case  before  twelve 
Bushmen  in  Africa,  do  you  suppose  they  would  stick  me?  Do  you  suppose 
that  you  could  find  a  man  who  would  take  a  club  and  knock  me  on  the 
head  if  a  jury  did  find  me  guilty  on  the  evidence  of  Franklin? 

Well,  Franklin  is  still  talking.  A  man  named  Warner  came  to  him 
to  get  employment  in  August  or  Spetember,  and  he  patted  his  jury  list 
which  was  lying  on  his  desk  and  said,  “I  am  going  to  win  this  case  right 
here;  there  is  an  angle  to  this  case  that  the  lawyers  know  nothing  about.” 
Is  the  witness  Warner  a  liar?  How  do  you  know  it?  Franklin  swears  he 
is.  He  swears  everybody  lies  excepting  himself,  and  that  he  is  a  liar  too, 
not  only  a  liar,  but  a  blankety  blank  liar,  that  is  what  Franklin  says,  not 
what  I  say.  But  he  is  an  emphatic  man  and  he  describes  himself  stronger 
than  I  would  care  to  describe  him. 

But  he  kept  on  talking,  and  he  went  down  to  the  beach,  to  Venice, 
and  saw  a  policeman,  Peter  Pirotte.  He  asks  if  Pirotte  would  like  to  go 
in  business  with  him  at  Venice  and  open  a  detective  office.  Pirotte  says, 
“You  have  been  in  trouble,  and  I  don’t  think  it  would  be  a  good  idea.” 
Franklin  replies,  “Oh,  I  will  get  out  of  that  all  right  in  a  few  days;  they  don’t 
want  me,  they  want  Darrow.”  And  Pirotte  reports  this  conversation 
to  my  friend  William  Cavanaugh,  and  then  Ford  says,  “Why  didn’t  you 
put  Cavanaugh  on  the  stand?”  Is  he  my  friend?  Have  you  any  doubt 
what  he  would  have  said  if  he  had  been  on  the  witness  stand?  The  reason 
I  didn’t  ask  Cavanaugh  to  be  a  witness  was  because  I  knew  they  would 


36 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


claim  he  was  testifying  for  me  on  account  of  our  close  friendship,  and  the 
District  Attorney  knows  that  is  the  reason. 

TO  REACH  GOMPERS  THROUGH  DARROW 

And  Pirotte  sees  Franklin  again  after  the  plea  of  guilty.  He  sees  him 
with  Watt.  The  meeting  is  purely  accidental,  as  both  Watt  and  Pirotte 
testified,  I  having  no  more  knowledge  of  it  than  the  man  in  the  moon. 
Watt,  however,  is  my  friend,  and  as  honorable  a  man  as  any  who  has  come 
before  you  in  all  the  weary  weeks  you  have  sat  listening  to  this  case.  You 
cannot  look  at  Watt’s  face  and  doubt  it,  not  for  a  moment — a  man  who  for 
six  years  has  been  City  Clerk  for  the  town  of  Venice,  a  man  of  character 
and  standing.  Franklin  met  them  and  took  lunch  with  them.  There  was 
a  political  campaign  at  Venice.  Franklin  was  talking  freely  because  he 
wanted  to  get  this  agency  down  at  the  beach,  and  when  Watt  told  him  that 
he  had  heard  of  his  trouble,  Franklin  said,  “That  is  all  right,  it  is  over  now. 
I  pleaded  guilty  in  the  Bain  case,  and  they  are  holding  the  Lockwood  case 
over  my  head  to  make  me  come  through  against  Darrow.  ”  To  make  him 
come  through  against  me!  And  they  talked  more  about  it,  and  Franklin 
said  I  had  never  given  him  dishonest  money. 

Now,  Ford  asks,  “How  could  Franklin  say  that  after  he  pleaded 
guilty?”  Why  he  was  saying  only  what  he  had  said  all  the  while.  He 
might  have  said  it  from  force  of  habit.  He  might  have  said  it  because  he 
was  drinking  and  didn’t  think  to  lie.  He  might  have  said  it  because  even 
in  Franklin  the  truth  naturally  comes  to  one’s  lips  first,  and  afterward 
he  caught  himself  up  and  said,  “Ob,  I  must  not  talk  about  this  case.”  Then 
Watt  came  and  told  me  of  this  interview  as  he  testified  here.  And  he 
sought  another  meeting  with  Franklin,  this  time  in  company  with  Steine- 
man.  Steineman  is  a  man  I  have  never  seen  in  my  life,  as  he  testified, 
except  that  I  had  been  once  introduced  to  him.  Steineman  owns  the  De¬ 
catur  Hotel  and  was  a  director  of  a  bank.  He  is  a  man  of  standing  and 
character.  How  does  he  compare  with  Franklin?  And  Franklin  told 
Watt  and  Steineman  together  that  the  money  to  bribe  Lockwood  came  from 
someone  else,  from  outside  parties,  and  that  I  never  knew  a  single  thing 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


37 


about  it.  He  added  that  I  would  not  be  tried  anyway  because  I  was  pining 
away  and  would  die  pretty  quick.  Well,  I  will,  and  I  thought  some  of  the 
time  as  this  trial  dragged  out  its  weary  way  with  fool  questions  and  im¬ 
material  issues,  I  thought  I  would  perhaps  die  before  we  got  through,  but 
I  am  here  still  and  hope  to  be  here  some  little  time  after  this  jury  pro¬ 
nounces  its  judgment  on  me. 

Now  at  this  meeting  Franklin  told  Watt  and  Steineman  that  the  reason 
they  wanted  to  get  me  was  because  I  knew  something  about  Gompers,  and 
that  if  I  would  say  something  against  Gompers,  they  would  let  me  go  as 
they  had  let  him  go.  Wonderful!  Isn’t  it?  Did  he  say  it?  Are  Steine¬ 
man  and  Watt  liars?  Are  you  satisfied  that  they  are  liars  and  that  Frank¬ 
lin  tells  the  truth — when  he  has  admitted  that  he  is  a  blankety  blank  liar 
himself?  Now,  gentlemen,  if  you  would  not  be  satisfied  by  this,  you  would 
not  be  satisfied  though  one  should  rise  from  the  dead.  You  would  not  be 
satisfied  if  an  angel  with  a  flaming  sword  should  appear  and  testify  that 
it  so  happened.  I  would  be  absolutely  helpless  in  the  hands  of  my  enemies 
if  an  array  of  testimony  like  this  could  not  satisfy  twelve  impartial  men — 
you  whom  I  know  are  r.ot  yearning  for  my  blood,  you  whom  I  know  I  have 
never  harmed  in  this  world — and  I  hope  that  I  have  harmed  very  few. 

Now,  think  of  the  impudence,  gentlemen,  to  ask  you  to  believe  a  man 
as  weak  as  he  is,  and  impeached  as  he  is,  and  upon  such  testimony  to  send 
a  man  to  the  penitentiary.  But  that  is  not  all.  Franklin  swears  that  he 
came  up  to  my  office  on  the  morning  of  the  28th  of  November  and  told  me 
that  he  was  going  down  to  Third  and  Main  to  bribe  Lockwood.  He  says 
Job  Harriman  came  up  with  an  overcoat  on  his  arm  after  I  had  telephoned 
to  him,  though  Job  swears  he  came  direct  from  his  house  that  morning, 
and  I  could  not  have  telephoned  him.  But  what  is  the  use?  Job  is  a  liar. 
I  would  need  Franklin  to  prove  anything  in  this  case,  and  I  cannot  get  him 
because  I  do  not  happen  right  now  to  have  the  key  to  the  penitentiary;  if 
I  did  I  could  have  him.  The  District  Attorney’s  office  has  the  key. 

Franklin  says  Harriman  came  up  there  and  I  stepped  into  another 
room  and  got  a  roll  of  bills  containing  four  thousand  dollars  from  him,  and 
then  I  handed  the  money  to  Franklin,  and  I  said  in  effect,  “Now,  little  boy, 


38 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


take  this  roll  in  your  hand  and  trot  down  to  the  corner  of  Third  and  Main, 
a6  near  my  office  as  you  can;  trot  down  to  Third  and  Main  and  buy  a  juror 
at  9  o’clock  in  the  morning.”  It  is  as  if  one  of  you  would  give  your  boy  a 
penny  and  would  say,  “Go  down  to  the  grocery  and  buy  some  candy.” 
And  he  takes  it  in  his  hand.  Of  course  when  he  took  that  Bain  five  hun¬ 
dred  in  his  hand  there  was  a  hundred  got  away  between  the  bank  and  Bain. 
He  says  he  doesn’t  know  where  it  went.  Maybe  the  Waldorf  saloon  could 
give  some  information.  I  don’t  know.  But  anyway,  he  held  this  four 
thousand  dollars  in  his  hand  so  that  none  of  it  could  get  away,  and  he  trotted 
down  the  hall,  down  the  elevator,  and  down  the  street,  holding  it  in  his 
hand,  to  bribe  a  juror  on  a  Monday  morning,  on  a  busy  street  comer.  And 
the  cautious  White  says,  “I  don’t  know  whether  it  is  wise  to  pass  this  on 
the  comer;  shouldn’t  we  go  into  the  saloon?”  And  they  went  into  the 
saloon,  and  then  probably  White  had  lost  his  caution,  and  went  over  to 
Third  and  Los  Angeles,  and  passed  over  five  hundred  dollars  of  the  four 
thousand.  He  must  have  taken  some  bitters  that  robbed  him  of  his 
caution.  And  Franklin  goes  down  with  him,  not  on  one  street,  but  two 
streets. 

Franklin  leaves  me,  he  says,  about  20  minutes  before  9.  He  was  trotting 
down,  going  rapidly,  so  quickly  that  he  did  not  stop  to  put  the  money  in 
his  pocket.  I  stayed  in  my  office  for  about  twenty  minutes,  and  lo!  and 
behold,  I  appeared  down  at  the  comer  of  Main  and  Third  Streets  within 
half  a  block  of  my  office.  Now,  Ford  tells  this  jury  what  he  knows  is  not 
tme,  and  what  he  does  not  believe,  that  I  went  down  to  watch  Franklin 
pass  the  money.  What  about  it,  gentlemen,  are  you  all  crazy  or  am  I 
dreaming?  I  did  not  suppose  this  panel  was  served  in  a  lunatic  asylum. 
Did  I  go  down  to  watch  him  pass  the  money?  He  said  I  waited  twenty 
minutes  and  was  not  there  until  it  was  all  over,  but  why  go  at  all?  Gen¬ 
tlemen,  there  is  none  of  you  can  imagine  that  you  would  commit  any  crime 
or  wrongful  act,  but  suppose  you  could  imagine  it?  Supposing  I  had 
known  that  Franklin  was  going  to  pass  four  thousand  dollars  to  a  prospec¬ 
tive  juror  on  the  corner  of  Main  and  Third  Streets,  do  you  think  I  would 
have  been  within  ten  blocks  of  that  place  at  that  time? 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


39 


FRANKLIN’S  EXPLANATION 

Why,  the  fact  that  I  was  there  proves  as  conclusively  as  human  reason 
could  prove  anything  that  I  had  absolutely  no  knowledge  of  the  plot. 
Ford  says  I  am  smart,  whatever  that  means.  At  least  I  have  never  been 
adjudged  insane,  and  I  have  never  yet  been  in  a  home  for  the  feeble  minded . 
I  do  not  need  to  be  very  smart.  Do  you  suppose  any  man  who  knows 
enough  to  come  in  out  of  the  rain,  let  alone  a  man  who  has  practiced  law 
for  thirty-five  years  with  fair  success,  would  have  gone  down  there  at  that 
time  if  there  were  any  other  highway  anywhere  else  in  Los  Angeles  county? 
They  know  it,  and  for  some  mysterious  reason,  they  have  sidetracked 
Franklin’s  explanation  of  my  appearance  there,  which  was  better  than 
theirs.  Why  does  Franklin  say  I  was  there?  He  tells  Watt  and  Steineman 
that  I  must  have  got  word  from  Brown,  their  detective,  and  went  there  to 
help  Franklin.  He  said  that  if  I  hadn’t  happened  to  appear  at  that  inop* 
portune  moment,  he  would  have  had  Lockwood  arrested.  He  admitted 
that  on  the  stand.  He  wasn’t  looking  for  me.  He  knew  I  wouldn’t  be 
there.  His  theory  was  that  Sam  Brown  or  someone  in  the  District  Attor¬ 
ney’s  office  had  given  this  thing  away  to  me,  and  that  I  had  gone  down 
there  to  save  him.  What  does  he  testify?  Why,  that  I  walked  up  toward 
him  and  said  something  to  him.  Ford  asked  him,  “What?”  He  replied: 
“I  am  not  sure  what  Darrow  said,  I  think  he  said  ‘they  are  onto  you.’  ” 

Is  there  any  single  syllable  of  evidence  in  this  case  that  anybody  ever 
gave  me  a  warning,  or  that  I  knew  anything  about  the  matter?  Accord¬ 
ing  to  the  theory  of  the  State,  nobody  knew  anything  about  it  but  Freder¬ 
icks  and  a  few  detectives.  And  God  knows  you  can  trust  detectives — 
you  have  got  to,  because  you  must  take  away  people’s  liberty  on  the  evi¬ 
dence  of  detectives. 

And  then  they  called  three  wonderful  witnesses  here  to  impeach 
Hawley,  the  witness  who  testified  that  he  telephoned  to  me  on  that  morn¬ 
ing  to  meet  him  at  Job  Harriman’s  headquarters.  Look  at  this  “impeach¬ 
ment”  of  Hawley.  Even  if  he  were  a  dishonest  man  he  might  call  me  on 
the  telephone,  I  take  it,  because  the  telephone  companies  are  not  partic¬ 
ular,  and  are  willing  to  rent  their  service  to  liars  as  well  as  to  honest  people 


40 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


— even  Franklin  used  the  telephone.  But  they  sought  to  impeach  Haw¬ 
ley,  and  they  brought  three  witnesses,  one  of  them  a  man  who  held  a 
political  office  with  him  and  who  had  trouble  with  him;  another  who 
wasn’t  satisfied  because  he  didn’t  get  his  commission  in  a  real  estate  trade 
and  had  sued  and  pursued  him;  a  third  who  had  another  business  trans¬ 
action  with  him,  and  didn’t  get  his  money — and  there  you  are. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  practiced  law  a  good  many  years,  and  this  is  the 
first  time  in  my  life  that  I  have  ever  known  of  a  lawyer  seeking  to  impeach 
the  integrity  of  a  man  by  men  who  have  had  personal  difficulties  with  him 
Did  any  of  you  ever  have  any  trouble  with  anybody?  Can  there  be  a 
man  on  this  jury  who  has  not  had  difficulty  with  three  or  four  men  wl  o 
would  be  willing  to  speak  ill  of  him  and  injure  him  if  it  came  their  way? 
If  you  haven’t  made  three  or  four  enemies,  gentlemen,  you  have  lived  a 
very  weak  and  useless  life.  A  man  who  can  go  through  life  as  far  as  you 
twelve  men  have  gone,  and  not  make  three  or  four  enemies,  is  not  worth 
while.  You  had  better  begin  on  me,  so  you  will  have  something  to  your 
credit  before  you  get  through. 

TIME  NOT  MEASURED  BY  THE  CLOCK 

To  halt  a  minute  for  fear  I  might  forget  something.  Mr.  Ford  figured 
on  five  minutes  here  and  five  minutes  there,  two  minutes  there  and  two 
minutes  here,  so  that  Hawley  could  not  have  telephoned  to  me  Does  a 
man  need  to  waste  his  breath  on  talk  like  that  where  human  liberty  is 
involved — whether  he  walked  a  block  and  a  half  in  five  minutes,  or  in 
three  minutes  or  four  minutes?  Does  any  man  know?  Does  Ford  know? 
And  yet  he  would  figure  it  up  and  roll  it  under  his  tongue  as  if  the  destiny 
of  the  universe  were  hanging  on  a  minute  or  a  minute  and  a  half  Does 
he  think  we  have  twelve  fools  here?  I  wonder  what  he  thinks.  Whether 
Hawley  waited  fifteen  minutes  or  five  minutes  is  of  no  account.  I  have 
waited  for  a  man  three  minutes  when  I  was  in  a  hurry  and  it  seemed  an 
hour.  But  I  have  lingered  in  some  places  an  hour  and  it  seemed  a  few 
minutes.  There  is  nothing  so  deceptive  as  time;  it  depends  on  how  you 
feel.  I  think  I  have  lived  a  thousand  years  in  the  last  year.  It  seems 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


41 


as  if  it  is  longer  than  all  the  rest  of  my  lifetime  put  together,  with  the 
weight  that  has  been  on  me.  No,  you  can’t  measure  time  that  way,  the 
measure  of  time  depends  upon  something  else,  it  depends  on  the  emotions, 
whether  they  are  pleasant,  or  unpleasant,  whether  they  are  serious,  whether 
you  are  in  haste — upon  a  thousand  things.  It  does  not  depend  on  the 
hands  of  the  clock.  It  is  childish  to  tell  this  jury  that  Hawley  lies,  and 
that  I  am  a  briber  on  the  turn  of  the  second  hand  of  the  clock.  Away 
with  it!  You  gentlemen  are  not  bribed  to  send  me  to  the  penitentiary 
or  to  keep  me  out.  If  you  are  bribed  to  send  me  take  a  big  one,  and  don’t 
send  me  on  such  flyspecks  as  that. 

And  then  I  come  up  to  the  street  and  meet  Sam  Browne  of  the  Dis¬ 
trict  Attorney’s  office,  my  mind  full  of  the  settlement  in  the  McNamara 
case,  with  the  weight  of  these  men’s  lives  on  my  shoulders,  wondering 
what  all  the  trouble  down  on  Main  street  was  about,  and  I  asked  Browne 
what  it  was  about.  Was  it  an  honest  question  and  an  honest  exclama¬ 
tion,  when  I  said,  “It  was  horrible,  I  would  not  have  had  it  happen  for 
anything  in  the  world?”  Did  it  sound  like  guilt,  or  sound  like  innocence? 
I  will  tell  you  It  depended  on  the  ears  that  heard  it.  To  a  man  looking 
for  guilt,  and  with  a  pair  of  ears  for  that  purpose;  to  a  man  not  believing 
in  his  fellowman,  it  sounded  like  guilt;  to  a  man  not  suspicious,  it  would 
sound  like  innocence — that  is  all.  Some  men  are  suspicious  and  cruel 
in  their  judgment,  other  men  are  broad  and  trusting,  and  kind  and  chari¬ 
table  to  all  who  live.  When  you  judge  the  acts  of  other  men,  you  tell 
about  yourself,  that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  When  I  tell  you  what  kind  of  a 
man  I  think  some  person  is,  you  get  an  index  of  my  mind.  It  may  be  the 
furtherest  away  in  the  world  from  the  man  I  am  talking  about,  but  you 
know  what  I  am,  and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it. 

I  don’t  know  the  exact  words  that  Browne  said  to  me  or  that  I  said 
to  Browne,  neither  does  he.  But  Ford  pretends  to  peddle  to  you  the 
exact  words.  I  was  not  there  measuring  words,  nor  was  he.  When  we 
met  at  that  time,  I  thought  a  great  calamity  had  overtaken  us  by  the 
arrest  of  Franklin.  You  don’t  know  what  you  would  have  said  in  a  case 
like  that.  I  don’t.  I  will  venture  to  say  there  isn’t  any  two  men  on  this 
jury  that  would  have  said  the  same  thing,  guilty  or  innocent. 


42 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


And  so,  about  Franklin’s  bail  bond,  this  evidence  that  I  had  fur¬ 
nished  ten  thousand  dollars  at  the  request  of  LeCompte  Davis.  Davis 
came  to  me  and  told  me  that  he  thought  Franklin  was  innocent,  and  he 
advised  me  to  give  him  the  money,  and  said  he  would  make  good  if  Frank¬ 
lin  ran  away.  Would  you  have  done  it?  Lord,  I  hope  you  would  have 
done  it.  If  you  would  not,  you  would  not  have  been  men.  I  would  not 
want  to  be  tried  before  twelve  men  who  would  not,  or  be  prosecuted  by 
one  man  who  would  not.  I  have  no  doubt  in  the  world  but  what  Fred¬ 
ericks  would  have  done  it.  Any  man  with  any  feeling  in  his  heart  would 
have  done  it,  and  I  did  it  at  Davis’  request;  I  had  not  seen  Franklin. 
In  one  breath  Fords  tells  you  it  was  suspicious  because  I  did  not  do  more, 
in  another  it  was  suspicious  because  I  did  so  much.  Which  is  it?  Did 
I  do  too  much,  or  did  I  do  too  little?  True,  some  of  the  time  when  I 
feared  Franklin,  I  thought  of  myself,  but  that  was  later,  not  until  after  the 
McNamara  case  was  settled.  Before  that  I  had  no  time  to  think  of  myself 
and  no  inclination  to  do  so.  But  when  I  wondered  and  thought  what  I 
ought  to  do,  I  did  not  know,  I  could  not  tell.  Do  you  suppose  there  ever 
was  a  time  when  I  seriously  thought  of  it,  in  my  long  experience,  that  I 
did  not  know  what  it  would  mean  to  have  Franklin  offered  immunity  at 
my  expense?  And  yet  I  never  asked  for  anything  in  the  matter.  I  never 
gave  him  a  dollar  in  that  long  time,  or  asked  him  for  a  statement  or  for  a 
word  which  I  doubtless  could  have  got.  I  never  raised  my  hand  with  him 
to  save  myself  any  more  than  I  have  with  anybody  else  since  this  case 
began,  or  since  my  life  began — and  I  did  too  much  here,  and  too  little 
there — away  with  it!  Can  you  sit  here,  you  twelve  men,  to  pass  upon  my 
guilt  or  my  innocence  and  tell  me  the  words  I  should  have  spoken  or 
should  not  have  spoken?  If  you  can,  you  are  endowed  with  the  wisdom 
and  omniscience  of  the  Almighty,  and  I  am  willing  to  be  judged  by  that 
now  and  hereafter.  Now,  again,  gentlemen,  in  passing  judgment  on  me, 
you  pass  judgment  upon  yourself — that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  If  you  are  so 
kindly,  if  you  are  human,  if  you  are  decent,  if  you  love  your  fellowman, 
if  you  believe  in  him,  you  will  find  me  innocent;  if  you  feel  malicious,  if 
you  feel  suspicious,  if  you  look  upon  me  as  guilty,  then  find  me  guilty,  I 
cannot  put  it  any  better  than  that. 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


43 


Now,  as  to  Franklin,  it  is  not  a  question  as  to  whether  his  testimony  is 
corroborated,  but  is  it  worth  anything?  Is  there  a  single  one  of  you  gen¬ 
tlemen  who  would  condemn  your  dog  upon  his  word?  Is  there  one  of  you 
who  would  condemn  the  meanest  reptile  that  crawls  upon  the  word  of 
Franklin  as  shown  by  the  testimony  in  this  case?  Did  he  lie  when  he  tes¬ 
tified  here?  Did  be  lie  when  he  said  that  he  had  not  thought  anything 
about  immunity,  but  knew  that  he  would  get  it  automatically?  Did  he 
lie  when  he  said  he  was  promised  nothing? 

I  have  said  about  all  I  care  to  about  Franklin.  I  have  said  enough, 
I  have  said  too  much.  I  have  no  feeling  against  him,  he  is  the  way  God 
made  him.  He  can’t  help  it  any  more  than  you  can  help  being  you,  or 
I  can  help  being  I.  It  was  a  hard  choice  he  bad  to  make;  it  is  a  hard 
choice  for  a  weak  man,  to  offer  him  honor  or  comparative  honor  on  the 
one  hand,  and  security  at  least  from  the  penitentiary  on  the  other.  Some 
men  will  take  one,  some  will  take  the  other;  it  depends  on  the  man;  he  is 
not  responsible  for  his  brain  or  his  skull.  I  don’t  want  anybody  to  think 
that  I  would  judge  him  with  hardness  or  bitterness.  I  have  never  judged 
any  human  being  that  way  in  my  life,  I  never  shall.  I  am  only  asking 
you,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  to  consider  the  reasonableness  and  the  proba¬ 
bilities  and  the  improbabilities  and  the  absurdities  of  his  story — nothing 
else. 

Would  I  take  a  chance  of  that  kind  surrounded  by  detectives  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.  Leave  out  the  moral  question.  Leave  out  the 
tradition  of  a  profession  that  I  have  followed  for  thirty-five  years.  Leave 
out  everything  except  the  bare  chance;  would  I  take  that  chance  with 
these  gumshoe  men  everywhere,  their  yes  on  everyone  connected  with 
this  case — detectives — nine  of  them  testifying  in  this  case — detectives 
over  the  town  as  thick  as  lice  in  Egypt,  detectives  everywhere.  ? 

Detectives  to  the  right  of  me, 

Detectives  to  the  left  of  me, 

Detectives  behind  me, 

Sleuthing  and  spying. 

Theirs  not  to  question  why — • 

Theirs  but  to  sleuth  and  lie — • 

Noble  detectives! 


44 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


I  hadn’t  a  chance  with  those  fellows.  Yet,  I  did  take  a  chance,  I 
took  the  chance  of  being  alive  where  they  were,  as  every  man  does,  unless 
he  could  rely  on  twelve  men  to  judge  him  honestly  and  kindly  and  care¬ 
fully,  as  I  feel  I  can  rely  on  you. 

Now  let  me  talk  a  little  about  Harrington.  Do  I  need  to  say  much 
about  him — a  man  who  came  here  to  work  for  me,  a  man  who  lived  in  my 
house,  who  ate  with  me  and  with  my  wife,  who  slept  under  my  roof,  and 
who  stayed  for  ten  days  as  our  guest — and  all  the  while  he  was  going 
before  Lawler  and  the  Grand  Jury  and  testifying  against  me?  Against 
me!  Great  God!  Do  I  need  to  impeach  him?  A  man  sleeping  in  your 
house,  eating  at  your  table  with  yourself  and  your  wife,  and  betraying 
you!  Is  there  any  crime  more  heinous  than  that?  Would  you  ever  w-nt 
to  look  upon  Harrington’s  face  again — the  man  who  sat  in  this  courtroom 
day  after  day  and  would  not  look  me  in  the  eye — afraid  of  being  hypno¬ 
tized?  If  I  started  out  to  hypnotize  Harrington  I  would  want  a  hunk  of 
corned  beef;  you  would  have  to  get  him  through  his  stomach.  Did  he 
look  at  you?  Did  he  look  one  juror  in  the  eye?  Will  he  ever  look  a  human 
being  in  the  eye  again  until  he  goes  down  to  his  unhallowed  grave? 

THE  DICTAGRAPH  TRAP 

And  then,  gentlemen,  think  of  that  man  plotting  in  Chicago  with 
the  Erectors’  Association — my  friend,  and  asking  me  for  money — meeting 
these  men  in  a  hotel  in  Chicago,  and  putting  up  a  scheme  to  trap  me  into 
a  hotel  room,  where  a  dictagraph  hidden  behind  a  bureau  could  record  my 
words.  They  knew  perfectly  well  then,  as  they  know  today,  that  they 
could  not  pick  out  twelve  human  beings  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  would 
throw  away  the  liberty  of  a  man  upon  the  testimony  of  Harrington  and 
Franklin,  and  so  they  thought  to  trap  me  where  the  hidden  dictagraph 
might  be  made  to  distort  my  words.  Is  there  any  doubt  about  that? 
And  Harrington,  posing  as  my  friend,  came  here  to  lure  me  into  a  room 
where  he  could  secretely  record  and  distort  my  conversation,  in  order  to 
land  me  in  the  penitentiary! 

Gentlemen,  where  is  there  a  parallel  for  that  in  the  annals  of  criminal 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


45 


trials?  Let’s  think  of  it  a  moment.  Wouldn’t  it  be  better  that  every 
rogue  and  rascal  in  the  world  should  go  unpunished,  than  to  say  that  de¬ 
tectives  could  put  a  dictagraph  into  your  parlor,  in  your  dining  room,  in 
your  bedroom,  and  destroy  that  privacy  which  alone  makes  life  worth 
living?  What  would  you  think  of  it,  one  of  you  men,  if  your  hired  man 
should  conceal  a  dictagraph  in  your  home  or  your  office,  and  seek  to  destroy 
you  in  that  way?  And  do  you  want  to  tell  me  that  the  Erectors’  Asso¬ 
ciation  that  would  be  guilty  of  a  shame  like  this,  whould  not  be  guilty  of 
plotting  my  ruin,  and  charging  me  with  a  bribery  for  which  they  themselves 
were  responsible?  I  want  to  say  this,  that  if  they  deliberately  put  up  a 
job  to  catch  me  on  the  streets  of  Los  Angeles,  that  job  was  a  sacrament 
compared  with  the  hidden  dictagraph  used  to  trap  a  man  into  the  peni¬ 
tentiary  They  used  to  have  a  steer  down  in  the  stock  yards  in  Chicago, 
where  Harrington  came  from,  that  had  been  educated;  they  had  educated 
this  steer  to  the  business  of  climping  an  incline  to  the  shambles.  There 
was  a  little  door  on  the  side  so  that  the  steer  could  dart  down  through 
this  door  and  not  get  caught  in  the  shambles,  and  his  business  was  to  go 
out  in  the  pen,  and  lead  the  other  steers  up  that  incline  to  the  shambles, 
and  then  just  before  they  reached  the  place  he  would  dodge  down  through 
the  door,  and  leave  the  rest  to  their  destruction,  that  is  Harrington. 

If  there  is  a  man  on  earth  who  would  give  credit  to  Harrington  in 
this  matter,  I  would  like  to  look  in  the  face  of  that  man,  and  I  would  find 
he  was  not  a  man — that  is  all.  Better,  I  say  again,  that  all  the  crimes 
that  men  could  commit  should  go  unpunished  than  that  credit  should  be 
given  to  a  scheme  like  that  which  was  plotted  in  the  Sherman  House  by 
Harrington,  Lawler  and  the  Erectors’  Association.  But  what  did  they  get 
from  their  infamy?  Nothing.  I  went  to  Harrington’s  room  where  the 
dictagraph  was  hidden  behind  the  bureau  and  talked  with  him  in  a  friendly 
way  day  after  day;  but  evidently  the  stenographers  in  the  next  room  who 
recorded  my  language  were  too  honest  to  distort  it  And  when  I  went 
on  the  witness  stand,  Ford  asked  me  if  I  said  this  and  that  while  the  dic¬ 
tagraph  was  listening.  And  all  the  time  they  had  in  their  wonderful  tin 
box  the  full  record  of  my  conversation — in  that  tin  box  which  contains 


46 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


more  infamy  than  any  other  box  in  the  world — more  infamy  and  less  evi¬ 
dence. 

More  infamy  and  less  evidence — infamy  practised  by  the  District 
Attorney’s  office.  And  they  did  not  show  this  infamy  to  this  jury  They 
did  not  dare  to  show  it.  Would  these  dictagraph  reports  have  shown 
that  I  told  the  truth  on  the  stand  or  that  Harrington  told  the  truth?  Then 
they  had  the  effrontery  to  argue  to  you  that  they  asked  me  all  they  wanted 
to  prove — and  my  denial  of  practical  every  single  thing  they  asked  stands 
unimpeached  and  you  know  it.  They  asked  directly  if  I  did  not  admit 
to  having  received  ten  thousand  dollars  in  bills  from  San  Francisco.  I 
said,  “No.”  Where  is  the  wonderful  tin  box?  Where  are  the  listening 
dictagraph  operators?  Would  they  have  testified  for  me  or  for  Harrington? 

Of  course  they  had  to  have  somebody  to  help  Franklin,  and  so  they 
threatened  Harrington.  They  placed  a  charge  against  him,  and  threat¬ 
ened  him  with  the  penitentiary  unless  he  did  something  for  them,  and  so 
Harrington  comes  to  the  stand,  and  he  lies,  and  he  lies,  and  he  lies,  and  you 
twelve  men  know  it]  What  did  he  say?  There  are  some  links  that  need 
filling.  Nobody  has  discovered  a  single  penny  that  I  have  spent  unlaw¬ 
fully.  They  have  had  access  to  every  check  I  drew.  They  even  photo¬ 
graphed  the  checks  in  the  bank  before  the  bank  gave  them  to  me.  They 
have  had  access  to  everything  I  did,  and  found  what?  Nothing.  A 
check  was  given  to  Mr.  Tveitmoe  for  a  perfectly  lawful  purpose — it  was 
just  as  necessary  to  have  money  in  San  Francisco  as  it  was  to  have  money 
here — and  they  seized  upon  that  check  early  in  the  game.  And  Harring¬ 
ton  tells  the  story;  look  at  it  a  minute.  This  man,  this  Harrington — out 
of  respect  for  “men”  I  cut  out  that  word — this  Harrington;  when  there  is 
anything  to  connect,  Harrington  does  it  He  found  out  that  a  check  had 
been  given  to  Tveitmoe.  How  did  he  find  it  out?  Why  he  found  it  out 
from  a  detective.  He  found  it  out  from  the  Indianapolis  Grand  Jury. 
He  found  it  out  from  Bums.  He  found  it  out  in  ten  thousand  ways 
You  cannot  tell  how.  He  found  out  that  such  a  check  had  been  given  to 
Tveitmoe,  and  he  comes  on  the  witness  stand  and  says  that  I  showed 
him  ten  thousand  dollars  in  bills  on  the  front  porch  of  my  house.  Let  us 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


47 


see  if  anybody  would  believe  this  story,  even  if  a  man  told  it.  He  swears 
that  some  time  between  the  20th  and  30th  of  September  I  drew  out  of  my 
pocket  at  my  house,  where  he  was  eating — he  never  missed  a  chance  to 
eat  with  me;  I  presume  he  would  eat  with  me  now,  if  I  gave  him  the  chance, 
and  have  a  dagger  somewhere  concealed  in  his  clothes,  if  there  was  room 
enough  for  it  after  he  got  through  eating.  And  he  swears  that  I  went 
out  on  the  porch  of  a  house  standing  upon  a  hill,  the  porch  brilliantly 
lighted  and  houses  all  around,  and  with  Mrs.  Dxrrow  and  his  daughter 
out  in  the  yard  in  front,  and  that  I  pulled  out  ten  thousand  dollars  from  my 
trousers  pocket  that  I  had  been  carrying  for  twenty  or  thirty  days,  and 
showed  it  to  him  and  told  him  that  I  was  going  to  get  a  couple  of  jurors 
with  it.  Now,  is  there  any  sense  in  that?  Any  reason  in  it?  Could 
anybody  believe  it  if  it  stood  alone  and  uncontradicted  in  this  case — and  if 
a  man  had  sworn  to  it,  instead  of  Harrington? 

And  on  the  morning  of  the  28th  of  November,  when  I  came  back 
from  Harrington’s  room  where  he  was  alone,  I  called  him  into  my  room 
and  said,  “If  Franklin  speaks  I  am  ruined.”  And  that  was  all.  Now 
think  of  it.  He  must  have  been  reading  Burns’  stories  or  Nick  Carter’s. 
“If  Franklin  speaks  I  am  ruined.”  If  I  said  that,  just  take  a  chance  and 
send  me  to  the  penitentiary,  take  a  chance.  There  you  are.  That  is 
the  wonderful  corroboration  of  the  most  wonderful  case  that  I  believe  has 
been  tried  since  men  had  the  right  to  jury  trial. 

TESTIMONY  OF  CROOKS  AND  INFORMERS 

Franklin  says  that  he  had  never  seen  Harrington  more  than  three 
times  in  his  life,  but  Mrs.  Hartenstein,  the  stenographer  who  occupied 
the  room  between  us,  swore  that  they  met  each  other  daily.  The  other 
stenographer  across  the  hall  who  went  in  often  to  take  dictation,  swore 
that  she  had  seen  them  together  at  least  two  dozen  times.  Mr.  Russel 
swears  that  he  had  seen  Harrington  and  Franklin  together  fifteen  or 
twenty  tines.  Is  he  a  liar?  I  don’t  know  about  that.  But  Harrington 
is  worse.  Was  Harrington  a  liar  when  he  lured  me  to  the  Hayward  Hotel 
to  destroy  me  with  the  dictagraph  trap?  Can  there  be  twelve  honest  men 
anywhere  in  Christendom  who  would  believe  him? 


48 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


Gentlemen,  show  me,  in  all  their  watching  and  their  spying — show 
me  with  all  the  money  they  have  spent,  with  all  the  efforts  of  the  strong 
and  the  powerful  to  get  me — show  me  in  all  these  long  weary  months, 
where  one  honest  man  has  raised  his  voice  to  testify  against  me.  Just 
one.  Just  one.  And  are  you  ready,  gentlemen,  is  this  day  and  generation, 
to  take  away  the  name  and  the  liberty  of  a  human  being  upon  the  testimony 
of  rogues,  informers,  crooks,  vagabonds,  immunity  hunters  and  detectives 
— such  testimony  as  has  been  massed  against  me?  God,  if  my  word  and 
my  character  do  not  weigh  more  than  all  the  trash  that  has  been  presented 
to  this  jury,  I  don’t  want  to  live.  I  don’t  want  to  live  in  a  world  where 
such  men  could  cause  the  undoing  of  an  American  citizen.  If  they  could, 
are  you  safe,  am  I  safe?  Is  there  any  man  who  is  so  high  and  powerful 
that  his  life  and  his  liberty  would  be  safe?  You  know  better,  it  cannot 
happen,  and  it  won’t  happen. 

And  what  else  about  Harrington.  He  is  contradicted  by  the  four 
witnesses  I  told  you  of.  He  is  contradicted  by  Fremont  Older,  who  came 
all  the  way  from  San  Francisco  to  tell  his  story,  and  he  told  it  straight 
and  truthfully.  He  is  my  friend  Ford  says  he  is  a  liar  because  he  is  my 
friend.  I  would  rather  go  to  the  penitentiary  and  stay  there  the  rest  of 
my  life  with  the  friendship  of  a  man  like  that,  than  to  purchase  my  liberty 
by  betraying  my  fellowmen. 

Now,  let  him  go;  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  one  more  phase  of  this 
case,  and  the  clock’s  minute  hand  is  moving  along  as  fast  as  Joe  Ford  said 
it  was  while  Hawley  was  going  from  his  office  to  Job  Harriman’s — so  I 
have  no  time  to  loiter. 

Was  there  any  reason  in  the  world  for  me  seeking  to  bribe  a  juror 
on  the  28th  day  of  November?  There  are  two  things  in  this  case  that 
are  not  even  disputed.  One  is  that  the  dictagraph  contained  nothing 
in  the  world  to  my  detriment:  here  was  the  place  they  would  have  evidence 
if  there  was  any  honest  evidence  in  the  world:  they  needed  it  or  they  would 
not  have  taken  the  trouble  to  do  such  an  infamous  act.  There  is  another 
fact  in  this  case  that  stands  out  so  clear  that  every  human  being  who  has 
beard  it  must  know  it  and  understand  it,  and  that  is  that  the  McNamara 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


49 


case  was  disposed  of  so  far  as  I  was  concerned  prior  to  the  28th  day  of 
November  Fredericks  has  said  before  this  jury  that  he  was  going  to  send 
out  for  some  of  these  people  who  formed  the  committee  that  made  the  set¬ 
tlement.  Did  you  see  them?  He  brought  Tom  Gibbon  before  you  for 
a  few  minutes  one  day,  and  after  talking  with  him,  he  sent  him  off  on  his 
business,  and  we  haven’t  seen  Mr.  Gibbon  since.  Neither  he  nor  Harry 
Chandler,  nor  any  member  of  that  committee  has  denied  a  single  word  of 
Steffens’  testimony  that  the  case  was  practically  settled  prior  to  the  28th. 

Now,  gentlemen,  perhaps  most  of  you  don’t  believe  in  all  the  phil¬ 
osophy  which  Lincoln  Steffens  believes  in.  What  of  it?  Suppose  some 
evening  when  you  are  in  your  jury  room,  and  you,  being  instructed  not  to 
talk  about  this  case,  get  into  an  argument  among  yourselves  about  matters 
of  philosophy,  and  the  old  question  of  free  will  and  necessity  crops  up. 
I  wonder  if  you  will  all  agree,  and  if  you  don’t,  will  you  say  that  the  man 
who  disagrees  with  you  is  a  liar,  because  he  has  a  different  philosophy? 
You  won’t,  not  unless  your  own  philosophy  is  very  poor.  Suppose  you 
start  a  little  discussion  on  politics  or  religion,  or  who  is  the  best  baseball 
player  in  America,  as  you  have  before  now,  will  you  agree?  Not  at  all,  and 
there  may  not  be  one  man  on  this  jury  who  would  believe  as  Lincoln  Stef¬ 
fens  believes  as  to  what  we  call  crime,  and  what  is  punishment,  and  what 
are  social  crimes,  and  what  are  not.  But  he  is  a  big  man  with  a  broad 
vision,  a  man  who  sees  further  than  most  men. 

WORLD  MOVES  TOWARD  MERCY 

Gentlemen,  because  you  don’t  believe  a  thing  today  is  no  sign  that 
it  is  not  true.  There  are  dreams,  and  the  dreams  of  today  become  facts 
tomorrow.  Every  effort  towards  humanizing  the  world,  every  effort  in 
dealing  with  crime  and  punishment  has  been  toward  charity  and  mercy 
and  better  conditions,  and  has  been  in  the  direction  of  showing  that  all 
men  are  at  least  partly  good,  and  all  men  are  partly  bad,  and  that  there 
isn’t  so  much  difference  in  men  as  we  had  been  taught  to  believe.  Every 
effort  that  will  last  beyond  the  day  and  the  year  must  have  a  humane 
idea,  must  have  for  its  purpose  the  uplifting  of  man,  must  have  its  basis 


50 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


in  charity  and  pity  and  humanity,  or  else  it  cannot  live.  Lincoln  Stef¬ 
fens  believes  that,  you  believe  it,  too.  You  may  not  believe  this  way 
or  that,  but  it  is  aspiration  that  has  raised  man  from  the  savage  drinking 
the  blood  of  his  fellow  from  his  skull,  and  has  led  him  up  through  trials 
and  toil  and  tribulation  by  which  he  has  arrived  at  the  place  where  he  can 
have  mercy  and  charity  and  justice  and  can  look  forward  to  an  ideal 
time  when  there  will  be  no  crime  and  no  punishment,  no  sin,  no  sorrowj 
and  when  man  will  visit  no  cruelty  upon  his  fellowmen. 

Almost  everything  that  you  believe  now  was  scouted  at  and  hissed, 
scarcely  a  hundred  years  ago.  Most  acts  of  humanity  that  we  practice 
today  would  have  been  despised  and  denied  two  hundred  years  ago.  The 
world  is  moving,  and  as  it  moves  brutality  is  further  off,  and  humanity 
is  nearer  at  hand.  I  don’t  care  for  Steffens’  views;  it  is  facts  that  I  am 
interested  in. 

Was  my  practice  humane  in  this  case?  Among  the  other  heinous 
charges  that  Mr.  Ford  saw  fit  to  bring  against  me  was  that  I  had  betrayed 
my  clients — I,  who  had  almost  given  my  life’s  blood  in  their  service — I, 
who  never  had  a  client  in  my  life  that  I  didn’t  consider  my  friend — I,  who 
under  the  traditions  of  the  profession,  and  under  the  feelings  of  my  heart 
have  put  myself  in  the  place  of  every  client  that  I  ever  served — I,  who 
worked  day  and  night  to  save  those  lives  that  fate  had  placed  in  my  hands, 
and  who  had  bared  my  breast  to  the  hostility  of  the  world  to  serve  them! 
I  betrayed  them !  Gentlemen,  I  wish  you  knew,  I  wish  I  could  make  you 
understand.  I  didn’t  need  to  do  it  I  was  not  on  trial  then.  I  was  living 
in  peace.  It  was  nothing  to  me  except  that  I  made  thier  case  my  own 
And  what  happened?  It  was  as  if  I  were  a  boy  walking  upon  the  sand  by 
the  sea  and  the  sky  was  clear  above  me,  excepting  here  and  there  a  fleeting 
cloud,  as  there  always  is  in  every  clear  sky;  the  waves  were  calm  and  peace¬ 
ful,  and  in  a  moment  the  heavens  fell  and  the  ocean  overwhelmed  me. 
If  it  shall  be  written  in  the  book  of  Fate  that  I  have  not  made  sacrifice 
enough  for  them,  well  and  good,  let  me  drink  the  cup  to  the  dregs. 

Did  I  think  the  McNamara  case  was  disposed  of?  Is  there  any  ques¬ 
tion  but  what  we  began  the  settlement  of  that  case  on  the  20th  of  Novem¬ 
ber?  Mr.  Ford  said  I  knew  these  people  were  guilty  from  the  beginning. 
Where  is  the  evidence?  I  did  not.  I  have  practiced  law  for  many  a  year. 
I  do  not  go  to  a  client  and  say,  “Are  you  guilty,  are  you  innocent?’’  I 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


51 


would  not  say  it  to  you.  Every  man  on  earth  is  both  guilty  and  innocent. 
I  know  it.  You  may  not  know  it;  I  know  it.  I  find  a  man  in  trouble.  In 
a  way  his  troubles  may  have  come  by  his  own  fault.  In  a  way  they  did 
not  He  did  not  give  himself  birth  He  did  not  make  his  own  brain. 
He  is  not  responsible  for  his  ideas.  He  is  the  product  of  all  the  generations 
that  have  gone  before.  And  he  is  the  product  of  all  the  people  who 
touch  him  directly  or  indirectly  through  his  life,  and  he  is  as  he  is,  and  the 
responsibility  rests  on  the  infinite  God  that  made  him.  I  do  what  I  can 
for  him,  kindly,  carefully,  as  fairly  as  I  can,  and  do  not  call  him  a  guilty 
wretch. 

I  had  no  knowledge  whatever  about  the  McNamaras  until  it  was 
borne  in  on  me  day  by  day  that  this  man  I  knew  who  trusted  everything 
to  me  could  not  be  saved  if  he  went  to  trial.  Just  as  the  doctor  finds  that 
his  patient  must  die,  so  it  came  to  me  that  this  client  was  in  deadly  peril 
of  his  life.  Do  you  think  that  if  I  had  thought  there  was  one  chance  in  a 
thousand  to  save  him  I  would  not  have  taken  that  chance?  You  may 
say  I  should  not.  That  if  I  believed  he  was  guilty  I  should  not  have  tried 
to  save  him.  You  may  say  so;  I  do  not.  If  this  man  had  suffered  death 
it  would  have  brought  more  hatred  and  violence,  more  wrong  and  crime 
than  anything  else;  for,  after  all,  gentlemen,  the  source  of  everything  is 
the  human  heart.  Youcan  change  man  by  changing  his  heart.  You  can 
change  him  by  changing  his  point  of  view  of  life.  You  cannot  change 
him  by  scaring  him,  by  putting  him  in  the  pen,  by  violence  and  cruelty. 
If  you  look  on  him  as  a  doctor  looks  on  his  patient,  and  ascertain  the  cause 
of  his  conduct,  then  you  may  change  him.  These  acts  of  violence  will 
occur  over  and  over  and  over  again  until  the  human  race  is  wise  enough 
to  bring  more  justice  and  more  equality  to  the  affairs  of  life  than  has  ever 
obtained  before. 

THE  MEN  WHO  BUILT  CIVILIZATION 

And  let  me  tell  you  about  these  acts  that  grow  from  social  conflict. 
The  men  who  stand  for  the  workers  strike  out  in  their  blindness.  True 
they  strike  out  in  the  night  and  often  wrongly.  These  men  who  built 
the  civilization  which  we  enjoy;  these  men  who  have  built  the  railroad  bed 
md  laid  the  tracks,  and  who  man  the  locomotives  when  you  and  I  ride 
peacefully  across  the  country  in  Pullman  cars;  these  men  who  go  ten,  twenty 
md  thirty  stories  in  the  air  to  the  top  of  the  high  buildings,  taking  their 
ives  in  thier  bands,  and  whose  mangled  remains  are  so  often  found  on 
he  earth  beneath — these  are  the  men  who  have  built  our  civilization, 
md  let  me  say  to  you  that  every  step  in  the  progress  of  the  race,  every 


52 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


step  the  world  has  taken  has  been  for  the  elevation  of  the  poor.  There  is 
no  civilization  without  it — there  can  be  no  civilization  without  it  The 
progress  of  the  world  means  the  raising  of  these  through  organization, 
through  treating  them  better,  through  treating  them  kindlier, 
through  treating  them  more  justly.  Every  step  in  civilization  means  the 
elevation  of  the  poor,  means  helping  the  weak  and  the  oppressed,  and  don’t 
ever  let  yourself  think  that  though  these  people  often  do  wrong,  that 
though  they  are  blind,  rebellious  and  riotous,  that  after  all  they  are  not 
doing  their  part  a  nd  more  in  the  progress  of  the  world.  I  knew  it,  I  felt 
it  then.  I  knew  that  though  terrible  were  the  consequences  of  this  blind 
act,  consequences  which  nobody  foresaw,  still  it  was  one  of  those  inevitable 
acts,  which  are  a  part  of  a  great  industrial  war.  I  believe  that  the  loss 
of  life  was  an  accident.  Nobody  meant  to  take  human  life  in  the  Times 
disaster  and  the  position  of  the  State  in  the  settlement  of  the  matter  showed 
that  nobody  meant  to  take  human  life  I  heard  these  men  talk  of  their 
brothers,  of  their  mothers,  of  the  dead ;  I  saw  their  human  side.  I  wanted 
to  save  them,  and  I  did  what  I  could  to  save  them,  and  I  did  it  as  honestly 
and  devotedly  and  unselfishly  as  I  ever  did  an  act  in  my  life,  and  I  have 
nothing  to  regret  however  hard  it  has  been.  Gradually  it  came  to  me  that 
a  trial  could  not  succeed.  Gradually  another  thing  came  to  me.  It  was 
expensive — the  money  of  the  Erectors’  Association,  of  the  State  of  Califor¬ 
nia,  the  power  of  the  Bums  Agency,  everything  was  against  us.  It  needed 
money  on  our  side,  and  a  great  deal  of  it.  It  needed  money  that  must 
be  taken  from  the  wages  of  men  who  toil — men  whose  cause  I  have  always 
served,  and  whether  they  are  all  faithful  to  me  or  not,  the  cause,  that  I  will 
serve  to  the  end.  I  could  not  say  to  them  that  my  clients  would  be  con¬ 
victed.  I  could  not  say  to  the  thousands  who  believed  in  them,  ard  who 
believed  in  me,  that  the  case  was  hopeless.  The  secrets  that  I  had  gained 
were  locked  in  my  breast,  and  I  had  to  act — act  with  the  men  whom  I  had 
chosen  to  act  with  me.  I  had  to  take  the  responsibility,  grave  as  it  was, 
and  I  took  it. 

Was  this  case  disposed  of  before  Franklin  was  arrested?  Why,  gen¬ 
tlemen,  there  is  no  more  question  about  that  than  there  is  that  you  twelve 
men  are  in  front  of  me.  Lincoln  Steffens  testified  that  on  the  20th  day 
of  November  after  he  and  I  came  from  San  Diego,  he  made  the  proposition 
for  a  stetlement  to  me.  The  idea  grew  out  of  a  conversation  we  had  with 
Mr.  Scripps,  and  I  said  I  wished  it  could  be  done,  but  I  said,  “If  anything  is 
done  it  must  come  from  you.  ”  On  that  very  day  he  went  to  Meyer  Lissner 
and  Thomas  Gibbon.  At  first,  I  had  so  little  confidence  in  the  possibility 
of  a  settlement  that  I  scarcely  thought  about  it  for  a  day  or  two,  but  soon 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


53 


Mr  Steffens  brought  back  reports  which  gave  me  the  confidence  to  wire 
my  friend  Mr.  Older,  and  ask  his  advice. 

All  the  leading  men  connected  with  the  labor  movement  on  this  coast 
were  then  at  Atlanta.  I  could  not  get  to  them.  I  had  to  take  the  re¬ 
sponsibility,  and  the  other  lawyers  had  to  take  it  with  me.  What  else 
could  we  do?  I  could  not  consider  politics  I  could  not  consider  my  own 
interests.  I  had  to  consider  those  accused  men,  nothing  else,  and  there 
isn’t  one  of  you  twelve  men  who  would  ever  hire  a  lawyer  who  you  didn’t 
believe  would  consider  your  interests  first  of  all — and  if  he  did  not  he 
wouldn’t  be  true  to  his  profession,  or  true  to  his  own  manhood.  Those 
things  alone  could  I  consider.  I  wired  on  Wednesday,  the  22nd;  I  wired 
to  Fremont  Older  and  I  wired  to  Gompers  to  send  me  a  man  at  once,  and 
I  named  certain  men ;  and  Mr.  Older  came  down  here  on  Wednesday  morn¬ 
ing.  Now  is  that  all  a  lie?  Did  I  wire  to  these  men  on  that  day?  If  so, 
why? 

Ford  says  I  might  have  got  up  all  this  scheme,  so  as  to  cover  up  a 
case  of  jury  bribing.  Well,  I  might — I  might.  Sometime  his  bitter 
heart  might  be  touched  by  feelings  of  kindness  and  charity,  it  might — if 
the  days  of  miracles  had  not  passed.  And  so  I  might  have  got  up  this 
elaborate  scheme,  because  I  foresaw  that  I  was  going  to  give  Franklin 
four  thousand  dollars  on  the  next  Tuesday  morning  and  start  him  off  with 
the  money  to  bribe  a  juror.  Why,  gentlemen,  I  might  have  done  it — and 
therefore  you  will  argue,  says  Ford,  that  I  did.  And  this  in  a  civilized 
country,  at  least,  presumed  to  be. 

THE  McNAMARA  SETTLEMENT 

Older  and  Davis  and  Steffens  and  I  met  together.  Was  I  betraying 
my  clients?  Davis  spoke  up  and  said  to  me,  “Mr.  Darrow,  you  can’t 
afford  to  do  it.”  Judge  McNutt  was  there;  he  was  as  fine  a  man  as  ever 
lived  in  the  world,  as  loyal  to  me  as  any  friend  I  have  e\  er  known,  as  true 
to  his  profession,  and  as  true  to  the  higher  ideals  of  manhood  as  any  man 
1  have  ever  met. 

Davis  said,  “You  will  be  misunderstood  by  Union  Labor.”  I  told 
aim  I  had  no  right  to  consider  myself.  I  had  no  right  no  consider  the  men 
vho  furnished  the  money.  My  duty  was  over  there  in  the  county  jail 
vith  those  two  men,  whose  lives  depended  upon  my  courage  and  my 
idelity  and  my  judgment.  Whatever  befell  me  I  must  be  true  to  them, 
md  no  lawyer  lives  who  is  true  to  bis  profession  and  true  to  himself  who 
:ver  hesitates  in  an  emergency  like  that. 

McNutt  at  once  agreed  with  me.  Davis  went  to  the  District  Attorney 


54 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


— and  this  is  uncontradicted.  The  first  proposition  that  came  from  Lissner 
and  Steffens  was  that  J.  B.  McNamara  should  plead  guilty  and  that  all 
other  prosecutions  should  stop.  Davis  then  went  over  to  the  District 
Attorney,  and  brought  back  word  that  it  would  require  a  term  of  years  at 
least  for  J.  J.  McNamara.  That  was  discussed  on  Wednesday  on  Wed¬ 
nesday,  November  22nd,  between  Older  and  Davis  and  Steffens  and  my¬ 
self.  And  Judge  McNutt  is  dead,  dead,  says  Mr.  Ford.  I  couldn’t  help 
it.  If  the  Angel  of  Death  hovering  around  the  court  room  had  come  and 
asked  my  advice,  I  would  propably  have  told  him  “Take  Ford,  and  spare 
McNutt,”  but  he  didn’t.  I  cannot  help  it  because  the  Angel  of  Death 
made  a  mistake. 

This  matter  was  considered  on  Wednesday.  Steffens  said  that 
he  would  see  that  the  original  proposition  went  through,  and  he  went  back 
to  Chandler,  the  manager  of  the  Times.  Chandler  was  meeting  with 
Steffens,  and  then  word  came  from  the  East — from  the  East — from  the 
seat  of  money  and  power  and  wealth  and  monopoly;  word  came  that  it 
was  not  enough  to  take  J.  B.,  but  that  J.  J.  must  plead  guilty  to  something; 
and  we  worked  on  that.  We  worked  on  it  the  rest  of  the  week,  and  Stef¬ 
fens  swears  that  he  went  and  interviewed  these  defendants.  Each  brother 
was  willing  to  suffer  himself,  but  J.  J.  didn’t  want  his  brother  to  be  hanged, 
and  J.  B.  didn’t  want  J.  J.  to  plead  guilty  to  anything.  J.  B.  agreed 
to  plead  guilty  and  take  a  fife  sentence,  and  J.  J.  said  to  us  that  after  his 
brother’s  case  was  out  of  the  way  he  would  plead  guilty  and  take  a  ten 
years’  sentence.  Ford  said  that  I  should  have  told  J.  B.  that  J.  J.  was  to 
plead  guilty.  Why?  I  was  defending  J.  B  ,  and  it  was  my  business  to 
get  the  best  terms  I  could  for  him.  I  was  also  defending  J.  J.,  and  it  was 
my  business  to  get  the  best  terms  I  could  for  him.  I  had  no  right  to  play 
either  one  against  the  other — no  right,  let  alone  what  a  man  would  naturally 
do.  Now,  that  was  the  condition,  going  back  and  forth  before  Saturday. 
We  bad  agreed  to  accept  the  District  Attorney’s  terms  if  no  better  terms 
could  be  had.  On  Saturday,  when  that  jury  list  was  drawn  it  was  not 
handed  over  to  Franklin  for  him  to  look  up  the  missing  names;  it  was 
kept  until  night,  until  he  himself  called  to  me  for  it,  and  I  gave  it  to  him. 
There  was  nothing  else  to  do.  In  the  face  of  the  world,  and  in  the  face 
of  our  employe,  we  were  bound  to  go  On  as  we  bad.  On  Sunday,  Stef¬ 
fens,  McNut  and  I  spent  most  of  the  day  at  the  jail,  where,  finally,  each 
of  the  brothers  separately  agreed  with  our  plan.  On  Sunday  night 
McNutt  called  Davis  to  his  house  and  told  him  that  the  McNamaras 
had  agreed  to  our  plan. 

Now,  gentlemen,  what  is  there  against  all  that,  anything  but  the 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


55 


breath  of  counsel?  Nothing!  The  testimony  as  to  the  settlement  of 
the  McNamara  case  stands  here  clear  as  sunlight.  On  Monday  monring, 
Mr.  Davis  went  to  Fredericks  and  Fredericks  agreed  that  he  would  accept 
the  pleas  of  guilty — J.  B.  to  take  life  and  J.  J.  ten  years.  Now,  what  about 
it,  gentlemen?  Is  all  this  a  lie?  Is  it  another  dream?  Why  even  Frank¬ 
lin  doesn’t  testify  against  this.  If  they  had  got  Franklin  and  Harrington 
to  contradict  it,  then  they  might  argue  that  I  had  some  motive  on  the 
28th  of  November  for  seeking  to  bribe  a  juror.  But  nobody  testifies 
against  it.  Fredericks  doesn’t  deny  it,  Chandler  doesn’t  deny  it,  nor 
Lissner  nor  Gibbon.  There  is  no  denial. 

In  the  meantime  I  had  received  a  telegram  from  Ed.  Nockles  on  Friday, 
and  in  reply  I  wired  him  to  come  on  immediately.  Was  that  dispatch 
a  fake?  Was  it  sent  to  cover  up  a  case  of  jury  bribing  at  the  beginning  of 
the  next  week?  On  Monday  every  one  of  the  parties  interested  had  for¬ 
merly  agreed  to  the  plan  of  settlement.  We  had  agreed  to  it  on  Sunday. 
We  had  agreed  to  it  on  Saturday,  but  we  were  still  trying  to  do  better  if 
we  could.  Davis  had  told  us  that  the  settlement  must  be  made  at  once. 
And  with  this  condition  of  affairs,  when  I  had  no  thought  whatever  that 
the  McNamara  case  would  be  tried,  is  it  likely  that  on  Tuesday  morning, 
I  would  take  four  thousand  dollars,  not  of  my  own  money,  but  of  money 
that  was  sorely  needed,  and  not  only  waste  that  money,  but  take  a  chance 
of  the  destruction  of  my  life  and  a  term  of  years  in  the  penitentiary,  by 
sending  Franklin  down  on  the  corner  of  Third  and  Main  streets  to  bribe  a 
juror? 

Gentlemen,  if  you  can  believe  it,  I  do  not  know  what  your  minds  are 
made  of.  If  there  is  anybody  whose  prejudice  and  hatred  are  so  deep  that 
they  cannot  be  removed,  who  can  believe  a  think  like  that,  I  would  like  to 
search  him  with  an  X-ray,  look  inside  of  his  skull  and  see  how  the  wheels 
50  round. 

The  settlement  of  the  McNamara  case  cost  me  many  friends,  friends 
that  have  been  coming  back  slowly,  very  slowly,  as  more  and  more  this 
matter  is  understood.  I  am  not  a  fool.  I  can  prove  that  by  Ford.  I 
knew  I  was  losing  friends.  Was  I  saving  myself?  Can  any  man  on  this 
jury  or  any  person  point  to  a  single  place  in  this  whole  matter,  where  I  ever 
sought  to  save  myself?  Was  I  trying  to  save  myself  when  Steffens  came 
to  me  after  Franklin’s  arrest  and  asked  if  the  settlement  could  still  be 
made,  and  I  said  it  could,  and  then  he  turned  to  me  and  said,  “Some  one 
may  think  that  some  of  you  lawyers  are  connected  with  this  Franklin 
matter,”  and  I  said  to  him  promptly,  “If  anybody  has  suspicions  of  any- 
;hing  like  that,  you  tell  them  for  me  that  this  matter  is  never  to  be  in  any 


56 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


way  considered  in  disposing  of  the  McNamara  case.  Let  the  law  take  its 
course  in  that.”  And  have  I  ever  haggled  or  bargained  or  sought  to  throw 
myself  into  the  balance  anywhere?  I  was  thinking  of  my  clients,  not  of 
myself. 

You  may  pursue  me  with  all  the  infamy  and  venom  you  wish,  but  I 
know,  I  know  in  my  inmost  heart  that  in  all  the  sacrifices  and  responsi¬ 
bilities  I  have  taken  in  my  life,  I  never  made  one  so  hard  as  this,  gentlemen 
With  the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  me,  knowing  that  my  actions  would  call 
down  the  doubt,  and  in  many  cases,  the  condemnation  of  my  friends,  I 
never  hesitated  for  the  fraction  of  a  second.  Perhaps  if  I  had  hesitated 
my  flesh  would  have  been  too  weak  to  have  taken  the  responsibility. 
But  I  took  it,  and  here  I  am,  gentlemen,  and  I  am  not  now  trying  to  get 
rid  of  the  responsibility.  Was  it  wise  or  unwise?  Was  it  right  or  wrong? 
You  might  have  done  differently,  I  don’t  know. 

I  have  been  a  busy  man.  I  have  never  had  to  look  for  clients,  they  have 
come  to  me.  I  have  been  a  general  attorney  of  a  big  railroad,  I  have  been 
the  attorney  several  different  times,  and  general  counsel,  as  it  were,  of  the 
great  City  of  Chicago.  I  have  represented  the  strong  and  the  weak — but 
never  the  strong  against  the  weak.  1  have  been  called  into  a  great  many 
cases  for  labor  unions.  I  have  been  called  into  a  great  many  arbitration 
cases.  I  believe  if  you  went  to  my  native  town,  that  the  rich  would  tel) 
you  that  they  could  trust  not  only  my  honor,  but  my  judgment,  and  my 
sense  of  justice  and  fairness.  More  than  once  have  they  left  their  dispute; 
with  the  laboring  men  with  me  to  settle,  and  I  have  settled  them  as  justly 
as  I  could,  without  giving  the  working  man  as  much  as  he  ought  to  have 
It  will  be  many  and  many  a  long  year  before  he  will  get  all  he  ought  tc 
have.  That  must  be  reached  step  by  step.  But  every  step  means  mor< 
in  the  progress  of  the  world. 

SOCIETY  IN  OPEN  RUPTURE 

This  McNamara  case  came  like  a  thunderclap  upon  the  world.  Wha 
was  it?  A  building  had  been  destroyed,  and  twenty  lives  had  been  lost 
It  shocked  the  world.  Whether  it  was  destroyed  by  accident  or  by  vio 
lence  no  one  knew,  and  yet  everyone  had  an  opinion.  How  did  they  forn 
that  opinion?  Everybody  who  sympathized  with  the  corporations  be 
lieved  it  was  dynamite;  everyone  who  sympathized  with  the  workingmai 
believed  it  was  something  else.  All  had  opinions.  Society  was  in  ope' 
rupture;  upon  the  one  hand  all  the  powerful  forces  thought,  now  we  ha\-' 
these  men  by  the  throat,  and  we  will  strangle  them  to  death;  now  we  wi1 
reach  out  the  strong  arm  of  money  and  the  strong  arm  of  the  law,  and  w 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


57 


will  destroy  the  labor  unions  of  America.  On  the  other  hand  were  the 
weak,  and  the  poor,  and  the  workers  whom  I  had  served;  these  were  rally¬ 
ing  to  the  defense  of  the  unions  and  to  the  defense  of  their  homes.  They 
called  on  me.  I  did  not  want  to  go.  I  urged  them  to  take  someone  else, 
but  I  had  to  lay  aside  my  own  preferences  and  take  the  case.  There  was  a 
direct  cleavage  in  society.  Upon  the  one  hand,  those  who  hated  unions, 
upon  the  other,  those  who  loved  them.  The  fight  was  growing  fiercer  and 
bitterer  day  by  day.  It  was  a  class  struggle,  gentlemen  of  the  jury, 
filled  with  all  the  venom  and  bitterness  born  of  a  class  struggle.  These 
two  great  contending  armies  were  meeting  in  almost  mortal  combat. 
No  one  could  see  the  end. 

I  have  loved  peace  all  my  life.  I  have  taught  it  all  my  life.  I  be¬ 
lieve  that  love  does  more  than  hatred.  I  believe  that  both  sides  have  gone 
ibout  the  settlement  of  these  difficulties  in  the  wrong  way.  The  acts 
jf  the  one  have  caused  the  acts  of  the  other,  and  I  blame  neither.  Men 
ire  not  perfect;  they  had  an  imperfect  origin,  and  they  are  imperfect 
ioday,  and  the  long  struggle  of  the  human  race  from  darkness  to  compara- 
;ive  civilization  has  been  filled  with  clash  and  discord  and  murder  and  war, 
md  violence  and  wrong,  and  it  will  be,  for  years  and  years  to  come.  But 
;.ver  we  are  going  onward  and  upward  toward  the  sunshine,  where  the 
latred  and  war  and  cruelty  and  violence  of  the  world  will  disappear. 

Men  were  arrayed  here  in  two  great  forces — the  rich  and  »,he  poor, 
■lone  could  see  the  end.  They  were  trying  to  cure  hate  with  hate. 

I  know  I  could  have  tried  the  McNamara  case,  and  that  a  large  class 
f  the  working  people  of  America  would  honestly  have  believed,  if  these 
ren  had  been  hanged,  that  they  were  not  guilty.  I  could  have  done  this 
nd  have  saved  myself.  I  could  have  made  money  had  I  done  this— if 
had  wanted  to  get  money  in  that  way.  I  know  if  you  had  hanged  these 
len  and  other  men,  you  would  have  changed  the  opinion  of  scarcely  a  man 
i  America,  and  you  would  have  settled  in  the  hearts  of  a  great  mass  of  men 
hatred  so  deep,  so  profound,  that  it  would  never  die  away. 

And  I  took  the  responsibility,  gentlemen.  Maybe  I  did  wrong, 
at  I  took  it,  and  the  matter  was  disposed  of  and  the  question  set  at  rest, 
ere  and  there  I  got  praise  for  what  was  called  an  heroic  act,  although 
did  not  deserve  the  praise,  for  I  followed  the  law  of  my  being — that  was 
1.  I  acted  out  the  instincts  that  were  within  me.  I  acted  according 
i  the  teachings  of  the  parents  who  reared  me,  and  according  to  the  life 
had  lived.  I  did  not  deserve  praise,  but  where  I  got  one  word  of  praise, 
got  a  thousand  words  of  blame!  and  I  have  stood  under  that  for  nearly 
year. 


58 


CLARENCE  DARROW’S  PLEA 


This  trial  has  helped  clear  up  the  McNamara  case.  It  will  all  finally 
be  cleared  up,  if  not  in  time  for  me  to  profit  by  it,  in  time  for  my  descend¬ 
ants  to  know.  Some  time  we  will  know  the  truth.  But  I  have  gone  on 
about  my  way  as  I  always  have  regardless  of  this,  without  explanation, 
without  begging,  without  asking  anything  of  anybody  who  lived,  and  I 
will  go  on  that  way  to  the  end.  I  know  the  mob.  In  one  way  I  love 
it,  in  another  way  I  despise  it.  I  know  the  unreasoning,  unthinking 
mass.  I  have  lived  with  men  and  worked  with  them.  I  have  been 
their  idol  and  I  have  been  cast  down  and  trampled  beneath  their  feet 
I  have  tood  on  the  pinnacle  and  I  have  heard  the  cheering  mob  sound  my 
praises;  and  I  have  gone  down  to  the  depths  of  the  valley,  where  I  have 
heard  them  hiss  my  name — this  same  mob — but  I  have  summoned  such 
devotion  and  such  courage  as  God  has  given  me,  and  I  have  gone  on — gone 
on  my  path  unmoved  by  their  hisses  or  their  cheers. 

PRAISE  AND  BLAME  ARE  UNJUST 

I  have  tried  to  live  my  life  and  to  live  it  as  I  see  it,  regarding  neither 
praise  nor  blame,  both  of  which  are  unjust.  No  man  is  judged  rightly 
by  his  fellowmen.  Some  look  upon  him  as  an  idol,  and  forgot  that  his  feet 
are  clay,  as  are  the  feet  of  every  man.  Others  look  upon  him  as  a  devil 
and  can  see  no  good  in  him  at  all.  Neither  is  true.  I  have  known  this, 
and  I  have  tried  to  follow  my  conscience  and  my  duty  the  best  I  could  and 
to  do  it  faithfully;  and  here  I  am  today  in  the  hands  of  you  twelve  men  whc 
will  one  day  say  to  your  children,  and  they  will  say  to  their  children,  that 
you  passed  on  my  fate. 

Gentlemen,  there  is  not  much  more  to  say.  You  may  not  agree  with 
all  my  views  of  philosophy.  I  believe  we  are  all  in  the  hands  of  destiny, 
and  if  it  is  written  in  the  book  of  destiny  that  I  shall  go  the  to  penitentiary 
that  you  twelve  men  before  me  shall  send  me  there,  I  will  go.  If  it  is  writ 
ten  that  I  am  now  down  to  the  depths  and  that  you  twelve  men  shall  lib 
erate  me,  then,  so  it  will  be.  We  go  here  and  there,  and  we  think  we  con 
trol  our  destinies  and  our  lives,  but  above  us,  and  beyond  us,  and  around  us 
are  unseen  hands  and  unseen  forces  that  move  us  at  their  will. 

I  am  here  and  I  can  look  back  to  the  forces  that  brought  me  here 
and  I  can  see  that  I  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it,  and  could  no 
help  it,  any  more  than  any  of  you  twelve  men  had  to  do  with  or  could  helj 
passing  on  my  fate.  There  is  not  one  of  you  that  would  have  wished  t 
judge  me,  unless  you  could  do  it  a  in  way  to  help  me  in  my  sore  distress- 
I  know  that.  We  have  little  to  d~  with  ourselves. 


IN  HIS  OWN  DEFENSE 


59 


As  one  poet  has  expressed  it, 

Life  is  a  game  of  whist.  From  unknown  sources 
The  cards  are  shuffled  and  the  hands  are  dealt. 

Blind  are  our  efforts  to  control  the  forces 
That  though  unseen  are  no  less  strongly  felt. 

I  do  not  like  the  way  the  cards  are  shuffled, 

But  still  I  like  the  game  and  want  to  play 
And  through  the  long,  long  night,  I  play  unruffled 
The  cards  I  get  until  the  break  of  day. 

I  have  taken  the  cards  as  they  came;  I  have  played  the  best  I  could; 
'  have  tried  to  play  them  honestly,  manfully,  doing  for  myself  and  for 
ay  fellow  the  best  I  could,  and  I  will  play  the  game  to  the  end,  whatever 
hat  end  may  be. 

Gentlemen,  I  came  to  this  city  a  stranger.  Misfortune  has  beset  me, 
>ut  I  never  saw  a  place  in  my  life  with  greater  warmth  and  kindness  and 
ave  than  Los  Angeles.  Here  to  a  stranger  have  come  hands  to  help  me, 
learts  to  beat  with  mine,  words  of  sympathy  to  encourage  and  cheer,  and 
hough  a  stranger  to  you  twelve  men  and  a  stranger  to  this  city,  I  am  willing 
o  leave  my  case  with  you.  I  know  my  life,  I  know  what  I  have  done. 
Iy  life  has  not  been  perfect;  it  has  been  human,  too  human.  I  have  felt 
he  heart  beats  of  every  man  who  lived.  I  have  tried  to  be  the  friend  of 
very  man  who  lived.  I  have  tried  to  help  in  the  world.  I  have  not  had 
lalice  in  my  heart.  I  have  had  love  for  my  fellowmen.  I  have  done  the 
est  I  could.  There  are  some  people  who  know  it.  There  are  some  who 
o  not  believe  it.  There  are  people  who  regard  my  name  as  a  byword  and 
reproach,  more  for  the  good  I  have  done  than  for  the  evil. 

There  are  people  who  would  destroy  me.  There  are  people  who  would 
I  ft  up  their  hands  to  crush  me  down.  I  have  enemies  powerf  ul  and  strong, 
here  are  honest  men  who  misunderstand  me  and  doubt  me;  and  still  I 
ive  lived  a  long  time  on  earth,  and  I  have  friends — I  have  friends  in  my 
d  home  who  have  gathered  around  to  tell  you  as  best  they  could  of  the 
e  I  have  lived.  I  have  friends  who  have  come  to  me  here  to  help  me  in 
y  sore  distress.  I  have  friends  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
i  nd,  and  these  are  the  poor  and  the  weak  and  the  helpless,  to  whose  cause 
have  given  voice.  If  you  should  convict  me,  there  will  be  people  to  ap- 
aud  the  act.  But  if  in  your  judgment  and  your  wisdom  and  your  hu- 
anity,  you  believe  me  innocent,  and  return  a  verdict  of  not  guilty  in  this 
se,  I  know  that  from  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  and  yea,  perhaps 
illions  of  the  weak  and  the  poor  and  the  helpless  throughout  the  world 
11  come  thanks  to  this  jury  for  saving  my  liberty  and  my  name. 


BOOKS  AND  PAMPHLETS  BY 


Clarence  Darrow 


FARMINGTON 

A  prose  idyll  of  boyhood  days  in  the  old  home  town;  in  the  author’s 
most  delightful  vein  of  unaffected  humor,  quick  sympathy,  and  un¬ 
conventional  thought.  Handsomely  bound  in  cloth  boards,  gilt  top, 
uncut  leaves . $1.50 

A  PERSIAN  PEARL 

Being  a  book  of  characteristic  essays  revealing  much  of  the  life  phil¬ 
osophy  of  the  author  in  his  interpretations  of  Burns,  Whitman,  Omar 
Khayyam,  and  his  views  on  “Realism  in  Art  and  Literature.”  Wide 
margins  on  special  deckle-edge  paper,  tastefully  bound  in  boards .  1.50 

EYE  FOR  AN  EYE 

The  swiftly  moving  narrative  of  a  victim  of  society  who  “paid  the  life 
penalty”  for  a  crime  enforced  by  his  environment,  told  with  a  forceful 
realism  only  equalled  by  Zola  or  the  Russian  novelists.  Cloth .  1.25 

RESIST  NOT  EVIL 

This  work  has  been  well  characterized  as  “A  startling  and  vivid  arraign¬ 
ment  of  the  doctrine  of  force  and  punishment.”  Has  had  a  very  large 
sale,  exhausting  several  editions,  and  is  now  out  of  print.  New  and 
revised  edition  in  preparation.  Cloth . 

CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS 

An  address  delivered  to  the  inmates  of  Cook  County  Jail  and  subsequent¬ 
ly  running  through  many  editions  in  pamphlet  form . 

THE  OPEN  SHOP 

A  forceful  argument  for  the  Trade  Unionist  policy  of  the  Closed  Shop. 
Pamphlet . 

THE  HAYWOOD  SPEECH 

Argument  to  the  Jury  in  the  Haywood  case  at  Boise,  Idaho.  Pamphlet. . 

DARROW’S  DEFENSE 

His  plea  to  the  Los  Angeles  Jury  that  exonerated  him  of  the  charge  of 

bribery.  With  portrait . 

Copyright  and  published  by  the  Golden  Press. 

Trade  supplied  by  Los  Angeles  News  Co. 


Any  of  the  above  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  prices  by 


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1 


Trials. 

L98778 

Vol.20 

DATE 

ISSUED  TO 

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